It was windy on course throughout Wednesday evening’s Team Time Trial, making a difficult and chilly 19,6 km ride in Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada, but Team Katusha was up for the challenge.

Starting sixth out of the fifteen teams riding in the third Tour of Alberta, the team took second place at five seconds behind eventual winners Trek Factory Racing, only moving to the third step as the final team of Orica-GreenEdge challenged for the win. A bonus to the good placing was the polka dot mountain jersey going to Alexey Tsatevich, a jury awarded decision based on the first rider across the line from the third place team.

"The course was very fast and I think everyone gave it their best, everything they had in their legs. The wind gave us a hard time, but of course it was the same for everyone. It seemed to constantly change direction, - said team rider Sergey Lagutin.

"That was pretty good. We were not really thinking about doing this well in the TTT as our chances will come later in the race. I thought the guys would be taking it easier to save something for later but they were really fast today. But they were motivated and as the number one team in the world we wanted to show respect for the race," said team director Dmitry Konyshev.

With the first time for the Tour of Alberta to include a team time trial in the parcours, anticipation was high for the special discipline against the clock. The time to beat was quickly posted by Trek, as they started in the third position and clocked up the eventual winning time of 22.57,10. Katusha came in three teams later, showing only two-seconds off the pace at the intermediate time check and then missing the best time by 8 seconds at the finish. It was then a long wait before Orica-GreenEdge came in as the last team on course, but despite a strong showing at the intermediate check, they missed some at the end and lost by less than one second.

With the win comes the first yellow jersey going to Bauke Mollema, followed by Jesse Sergent and Hayden Roulston, all of Trek Factory Racing.

The race continues on Thursday with the first road stage. The race stays close by in Grand Prairie County for a 171,6 km stage from Grand Prairie to nearby Lethbridge. The stage features 1 km of dirt, two sprint and two mountain points.