Going into the team time trial, it was Jan Bakelants that was wearing yellow, but Radioshack Leopard were not seriously expected to finish high enough in the standings for Bakelants to retain the yellow jersey. Indeed, this turned out to be the case. Some of the favourites for the victory included Team Sky, Omega Pharma Quickstep and Garmin Sharp and, clearly, any teams targeting the GC as one of their major aims would have to put in a decent performance. The course was only 25 km long, so it was unlikely that any team would lose too much time, but for those chasing yellow it would clearly be preferable to put time into rivals, rather than to lose it.
What was somewhat unexpected was that it would be Orica Greenedge that would come away with the victory and the yellow jersey. After Simon Gerrans' victory in stage three, the pressure for the team to get a stage win was off, and this perhaps helped somewhat. In the end, they finished ahead of Omega Pharma Quickstep by a second; with Sky in third, three seconds behind; Saxo Tinkoff in fourth at nine seconds behind; and Lotto Bellisol in fifth, at 17 seconds behind.
Although Sky may have wanted to take the victory, they were riding with an injured rider, Geraint Thomas, and perhaps there is some relief that they won't have to defend the jersey and control the race, if it means Thomas can hide out in the peloton and work on recovering. Alberto Contador will be glad his team didn't lose too much time to Sky. BMC may be disappointed that they finished 26 seconds down on the stage winners, but it is not an unsurmountable amount of time to make up.
With a flat stage on the horizon, the yellow jersey could be on Simon Gerrans' shoulders for a number of days to come, although that is likely to change when the race enters the high mountains.
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