Hushovd in yellow as Garmin win team time trial

World champion Thor Hushovd took over the Tour de France yellow jersey from Belgian Philippe Gilbert as Garmin-Cervelo triumphed for the first time on the race’s second stage yesterday.

Hushovd’s Garmin team, one of the favourites for the 23km team time trial, set a winning time of 24min 48sec for the punishing event to beat the BMC team, of Australia’s Cadel Evans, into second place by four seconds.

British outfit Team Sky, who had been poised to put Welshman Geraint Thomas into the race lead, finished third just behind BMC, also at four seconds.

Hushovd, who had finished third at six seconds behind Gilbert on the opening stage, pulls on the race leader’s jersey by virtue of being his team’s best-placed rider on Saturday.

In the overall standings, the Norwegian has the same time as Scottish team-mate David Millar, with Evans in third place at one second.

Thomas, who had been Sky’s highest-placed rider on Saturday, is fourth overall at four seconds with Germany’s Linus Gerdemann, of Leopard-Trek, fifth at 10.

While the Omega-Pharma team stuck to the form book, finishing well out of contention and failing to keep Gilbert in the yellow jersey, Garmin celebrated as a team on the podium where they hoisted team manager Jonathan Vaughters into the air.

It is the first victory of any kind in the race for Garmin, who merged with Hushovd’s former team Cervelo at the start of the season.

“It was a big dream of mine to pull on the yellow jersey as world champion, so you can imagine how happy I feel,” Hushovd, who has worn the race’s coveted jersey three previous times in his rich career, told reporters yesterday.

Garmin had been ninth from the 22 teams to set off from Les Essarts, and with a number of big rivals still to finish it was a nervous wait.

Team Sky were a big threat, and when they finished four seconds adrift Garmin breathed a sigh of relief – followed by huge cheers at their team bus – when the British outfit came over the finish line.

Meanwhile, reigning champion Alberto Contador lost more time on the stage.

Contador, who lost 1min 14sec to his rivals due to a crash Saturday, dropped further down the overall standings to 75th at 1:42 behind Hushovd after his Saxo Bank team could only finish eighth at 28sec behind Garmin.