Tuft celebrates perfect time trial in Slovenia

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Svein Tuft won his second time trial of the season and gave the Orica-GreenEdge team its 20th win of the year with a perfect ride in the 8.8km opening time trial at the Tour de Slovénie on Thursday evening.

The Canadian beat teammate Brett Lancaster by six seconds, stopping the clock in a time of 9:55 for an average of 53.2km/h. Artem Ovechkin (Rusvelo) was third at eight seconds, with Sebastian Langeveld giving Orica-GreenEdge three in the top four by finishing 13 seconds slower.

“Everything went right. I had good sensations from the start. I knew I was on a good ride,” Tuft said on the Orica-GreenEdge website.

“I went as hard as I could and hoped to hang on all the way to the finish- It was about not leaving anything in the tank.”

“The capital city of Ljubljana is beautiful. This was a nice course for going flat out. There wasn’t anything tricky about it. The roads were in good conditions and it was nice not to race in the rain.”

Tuft wears the leader's jersey during stage but he and the team has realistic overall ambitions for the four-day stage race.

“We don’t have a chance here for the overall. We didn’t bring any guys who can contend with the big mountains. We don’t expect to have the jersey on the last day, but we’re happy to have it tomorrow (Friday),” directeur sportif Matt Wilson said.