Tour de France 2019: Geraint Thomas gains time on rivals as Mike Teunissen retains yellow jersey

Thomas finished second behind Jumbo-Visma, in a result which saw stage one winner Teunissen extend his race lead

Geraint Thomas has gained time on his Tour de France rivals by finishing second on stage two’s team time trial.

Thomas finished second behind Jumbo-Visma, in a result which saw stage one winner Mike Teunissen extend his race lead.

Teunissen’s team-mate Steven Kruijswijk is now the best placed of the general classification hopefuls, 20 seconds clear of Ineos’ co-leaders, as some significant early gaps opened up.

Thomas and Bernal picked up 12 seconds on Groupama-FDJ’s Thibaut Pinot, 16 seconds on Bahrain-Merida’s Vincenzo Nibali and 21 seconds on both Adam Yates of Mitchelton-Scott and Jakob Fuglsang of Astana, who looked untroubled by the knee injury he suffered a in late spill on Saturday.

But others suffered more. Dan Martin’s UAE Team Emirates, not noted time triallists, were relatively happy to have only conceded 43 seconds but Quintana’s Movistar gave up 45, Porte’s Trek-Segafredo 58 and Bardet’s AG2R La Mondiale 59 seconds.