Team Giant-Alpecin took 16th in the Team Time Trial at the Tour de France, 1’37” behind the winning squad BMC Racing Team, as Christopher Froome defended his yellow jersey with success. 

Stage 9 of the Tour de France was a Team Time Trial on a difficult course of 28km from Vannes to Plumelec, with rolling roads and finish on the 153m Côte de Cadoudal.

In 33’52” Team Giant-Alpecin raced to 16th in the final ranking with an average speed of 49.6km/h and 1’37” behind the winning BMC Racing Team.

Ahead of tomorrow’s rest day Christopher Froome defended his yellow jersey with success, as Team Sky was close to victory taking second by 0.62 seconds. Warren Barguil is now 14th in the GC.

Austrian TT champion, Georg Preidler said: “We did a good time trial but at the end we were running out of guys. Without Tom [Dumoulin] and the team we have here, we made the best out of it.

“We were only just 15” outside the top-10 today, which isn’t too bad.”

Warren Barguil added: “It was an incredible moment for me to wear the white jersey here in the Tour. I am happy with my first week of racing and satisfied with today’s TTT. Without Tom [Dumoulin] it was more difficult obviously, but we did a good job.”

Coach Marc Reef reflected: “Upfront we would have settled for and been satisfied with a loss less then 1’30”, based upon the comparable TTT in the Dauphine, so with 1’37” the loss was a little more than we hoped for.

“Today 16th was the best possible result, it was a good TTT and we raced maximally, as Georg [Preidler], Simon [Geschke], Warren [Barguil] and also John [Degenkolb] were the driving forces.”