Tour de France Power Rankings- Stage 2

Which teams have shown themselves to be better than the rest through two days of racing?

Fernando Gaviria, Peter Sagan, Tour de France 2018, Stage 2

Battling it out for top spot! Source: Getty Images

It's often a tough task to tell at a glance which teams are doing well at the Tour de France, there are 22 of them going around France, each with their own objectives and strengths. 

So borrowing a tool from other sports, Cycling Central will be running a Power Rankings this Tour de France. It's a quick guide to which teams are excelling and which are unlucky or faring poorly. And yes, these first few stages have thrown up some unexpected results!

1. BORA-hansgrohe (up one position)

Sagan is off to a superb start in his bid to reclaim the green jersey, one win and one second-placed finish. BORA-hansgrohe did their job for their main man in the finale and for the intermediate sprint.

The inimitable world champion trades in his world champion's jersey for yellow on Stage 3 and no doubt will continue to be at his entertaining best in the rest of the Tour.

Best Result: 1st - Peter Sagan - Stage 2

2. Quick-Step Floors (down one positon)

A fall on the final kilometres was seemingly all that stood between Gaviria and another victory as his Quick-Step Floors teammates were swarming the front of the race and the Colombian looked very comfortable. 

He picked himself up quickly from the fall and appeared unhurt. He unfortunately relinquished the yellow jersey but there are plenty of sprints left in the opening stages.

Best Result: 1st - Fernando Gaviria - Stage 1

3. Wanty-Groupe Gobert (up three positions)

A profitable day for the Belgian Pro Continental squad, with Kiwi Dion Smith jumping out of the breakaway to take the one available mountain point on the stage, claiming the polka dot jersey. He's the first New Zealander to wear a classification leader's jersey. 

They've also got Timothy Dupont showing some useful form in the sprints - 13th on the first stage and 6th on the second.

Best Result: KOM jersey - Dion Smith

4. Bahrain Merida (up eight positions)

It's been a very solid start to the race for Bahrain Merida. Nibali has stayed clear of the crashes so far and today was the stage for Sonny Colbrelli to come to the fore. 

He was coming fast behind Sagan, and given another 10-20 metres he would have overcome the world champion. Disappointed, he slapped the handlebars, but this isn't the last we've seen of the resilient Italian sprinter.

Best Result: 2nd - Sonny Colbrelli - Stage 2

5. UAE Team Emirates (same)

Alexander Kristoff has been far from his best this season, but he has managed two consecutive top five finishes and is getting piloted into the right spots to win races. Whether he has the legs is yet to be seen.

Dan Martin stayed safe again, one of the few times the Irishman has actually enjoyed the 'luck of the Irish' in what has been an unlucky past few seasons for the top overall hope.

Best Result: 4th - Alexander Kristoff - Stage 1

6. Katusha-Alpecin (down three positions)

An ill-timed rear wheel puncture for Marcel Kittel kept him out of the Stage 2 sprint so the team will have to be content with keeping their Russian GC hope, Ilhnur Zakarin, safe. 

Best Result: 3rd - Marcel Kittel - Stage 1

7. Groupama- FDJ (up fifteen positions)

Demare and Groupama-FDJ regrouped from the disappointment of Stage 1 to produce a much more convincing display to finish third on the stage. The French sprinter maybe jumped a bit early on the uphill run to the line and was rounded handily by Sagan and Colbrelli before the finish line.

Really bad luck for the team with Rudy Molard going down in a nasty-looking crash. They'll be sweating on his recovery as he's one of their best chances at a breakaway stage win later in the race.

Best Result: 3rd - Arnaud Demare - Stage 2

8. Trek-Segafredo (up four positions)

John Degenkolb has been getting his chances in the sprints, but he has yet to show that he's got the speed required to beat the best of the fast men. 

He balked and complained as Sagan swung pass him in the finale, but he wasn't carrying enough pace to make a fight out of the sprint. 

Best Result: 8th - John Degenkolb - Stage 1

9. Fortuneo-Samsic (down five positions)

Bit of a nothing stage from the wildcard squad, but they did have Kevan Ledanois swanning around in his spotted attire as leader of the KOM classification.

Best Result: 1 day in KOM jersey - Kevan Ledanois 

10. Direct Energie (up three positions)

Aside from winning something, there can little better exposure for a team than a solo breakaway. The cameramen have nothing else to do except finding creative ways of shooting your bike and sponsors' logos for a few hours straight.

Sylvain Chavanel didn't manage the main goal of taking the mountains jersey, but he would have won plenty of plaudits for the Vendee-based squad.

Best Result: 13th - Thomas Boudat - Stage 1

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11. Lotto Soudal (up eight positions)

Bit of a bounceback stage for Lotto Soudal as Greipel managed to avoid the final crash and have a go at the finish. He was put in a really good spot by his teammates and might be a bit disappointed that he didn't have the speed in his legs to finish better than fourth.

Best Result: 4th - Andre Greipel - Stage 2

12. Cofidis (down three positions)

A fifth-placed finish for Christophe Laporte on Stage 1 wasn't replicated on Stage 2, but the same can be said of many of the teams after the chaos in the final.

With the team opting not to try and get a man in the breakaway and no real GC contender, it's clear they'll be looking for their sprinter to deliver most of their results. 

Best Result: 5th - Christophe Laporte - Stage 1

13. Team Sunweb (down six positions)

Michael Matthews was frustrated after the stage, which looked well-suited to the sprinter-cum-climber's abilities. He was caught up in the crash and though uninjured, will be fuming at a chance gone begging. 

The squad will be prepared for a big team time trial tomorrow, as reigning world champions they'll be looking to leave their mark on proceedings.

Best Result: 7th - Michael Matthews - Stage 1

13. AG2R-La Mondiale (up two positions)

A sneaky little move on Stage 1 from Oliver Naesen got the team some TV time and grabbed a bonus second for the former Belgian champion. That might seem like a waste of effort, but look at stage like today, it certainly was a big advantage for the teams that got to the crash sites first to tend to their riders.

Bardet stayed safe and that's all this squad is aiming for this part of the Tour. They'll be looking to limit time loss in the team time trial.

Best Result: 8th on GC - Oliver Naesen

14. Lotto NL-Jumbo (down four positions)

Groenewegen was one of those held up by the crashes in the finale. Maybe if he had an entire team dedicated to him, he would have been up there, but it's hard to speculate.

GC leaders Primoz Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk will have their eyes firmly fixed on gaining time tomorrow.

Best Result: 6th - Dylan Groenewegen - Stage 1

15. Astana (down six positions)

After a good first day for Astana, it was a poor second stage. 

Losing Luis Leon Sanchez is a massive blow just ahead of the team time trial, with the four-time national time trial champion of Spain in some hot form this season.

Jakob Fuglsang has been packed in cotton wool so far this Tour.

Best Result: 9th - Jakob Fuglsang - Stage 1

16. EF Education First-Drapac (down one position)

The biggest memory you'll have taken away of this team's performance so far is Lawson Craddock dripping blood and ploughing on regardless after a nasty crash on Stage 1. Hopefully he can continue to fight on, but he'll be up against it with the team time trial tomorrow.

Rigoberto Uran is sitting pretty at the moment, and the 51 seconds he has gained on Froome so far is three seconds short of the disadvantage he ceded to the Briton in the entire Tour last year.

Best Result: 41st - Rigoberto Uran - Stage 2

17. Movistar (down one position)

Quintana losing so much time is the main reason the team is quite low down these rankings.

It looks like the leaders are really doing their own thing, Valverde has his own personal protector in Bennati, who's doing a sterling job of keeping 'Bala' out of trouble. Quintana could use some help like that.

Best Result: 7th - Alejandro Valverde - Stage 2

18. Dimension Data (down one position)

Dimension Data looked interested in bringing it to a sprint finish, but it's zero from two after Stage 2. 

They've been caught the wrong side of crashes each time. A bit of bad luck, sure, but they'll need to find other ways of getting results if they can't start delivering on the flat stages.

Best Result: 19th - Edvald Boasson Hagen - Stage 1

19. Team Sky (down one position)

Chris Froome losing 51 seconds at this stage of the race isn't insurmountable and Team Sky should have been settled down a bit by a relatively uneventful stage from their point of view.

Geraint Thomas also took a free bonus second at the sprint point for very little energy expended, unlikely to be relevant, but you take time where you can get it.

Best Result: 14th - Geraint Thomas - Stage 1 

20. BMC (down one position)

BMC appear to have had a firecracker put up them between stages as they were ever-present near the front of the race. The time loss for Porte from Stage 1 isn't the end of the world and the squad will be very keen to erase that deficit in the team time trial.

Tejay van Garderen is a likely candidate to be in the Yellow Jersey by stage's end, as he hasn't conceded any time yet.

Best Result: 15th - Greg van Avermaet - Stage 2 

22. Mitchelton-Scott (down one position)

The Australian-registered squad have been walking under some ladders whilst breaking mirrors with black cats in the vicinity. Their bad luck with crashes is piling up and while they haven't sustained any major injuries they'll be battered, bruised and down on time going into the team time trial for Stage 3.

Best Result: 22nd - Adam Yates - Stage 2 


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10 min read
Published 9 July 2018 9:41am
Updated 9 July 2018 9:50am
By Cycling Central
Source: Cycling Central


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