Team Giant-Shimano proved that they have improved a lot in team time trials when they finished an outstanding 6th in the opening stage of the Vuelta a Espana. The team now hopes to put John Degenkolb in the leader's jersey by scoring bonus seconds.

Team Giant-Shimano has got its Vuelta a España campaign off to a strong start today by placing sixth in the opening team time trial, a 12.6km effort against the clo9ck in Jerez de la Frontera.

The team covered the course in a time of 14’29″, averaging just shy of 52.2km/h for the technical course. Last year the team finished the opening team time trial in 21st position, so this is a stark improvement in the discipline, showing that the hard work and dedication to improve against the clock is paying off.

Team Giant-Shimano coach, Lionel Marie said after the stage: “I am pleased for the guys and also for everyone involved in the team today – a team time trial is a real team effort and both the riders and the staff gave their maximum today. It was not easy out there with all the roundabouts being quite technical, but the guys rode well.

“We did a good reconnaissance of the course so everybody knew what to expect, and then during the warm up we stuck to the plan made by the trainers [Adriaan Helmantel and Mattias Reck] beforehand which worked well.

“I think with a bit more work we can shave off more seconds but we can be pleased with the result today. Nikias [Arndt] and Johannes [Fröhlinger] pulled hard and dropped off before the end, and Warren [Barguil] got caught with a small time gap but this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Tomorrow is another day – John is really focused and in good shape so hopefully he can do something nice.”

Chad Haga added: “It was really hard today, and I think it was not a perfect effort from us but we can be pleased with the sixth place for sure.

“We did in total three laps in practice out on the course this morning at about 80% effort in race formation to really get to know the route at speed. Then during the race there were so many turns that it was really key to have Lionel in the ear helping us and keeping us informed of gaps in the formation.

“I’m really excited to be here and for the next three weeks of racing.”

“The TTT was hard and I must thank my teammates for helping me out there,” said Warren Barguil after the team effort. ”I’m happy with the our sixth place – we communicated well during the stage and I think that this helped us gain time over others. Now it’s time to focus our efforts on John [Degenkolb] for a few days. It’s a good start to move forward from.”

Koen de Kort also commented after the stage: “I think it was a circuit that suited us fairly well today – we could go quite fast through the corners. We’ve got some guys with really good form here and although we made a few mistakes we can be happy with sixth. I think it’s probably one of the best team time trial results we’ve had.

“We’ve shown that with this result that we’ve made a good step, both in the GC and also with John – the time gaps are still small and with some good bonus seconds on offer in the next few days we could do something good.

“I’m feeling really good actually and have been over the past few weeks. I felt good out there and even thought that we could have been going quicker at the finish but I think we were doing just fine.”