South African Daryl Impey, racing for the ORICA-GreenEDGE pro cycling team, is placed second on the Tour de France General Classification (GC) after yesterday’s thrilling fourth stage 25km Team Time Trial in Nice.
Photo credit: Graham Watson
ORICA-GreenEDGE won the TTT by 75 hundredths of a second ahead of Omega Pharma-Quickstep, placing Impey’s teammate Simon Gerrans in the yellow jersey, and Impey himself in second place on the overall GC.
Read the full story by Jean-François Quénet on cyclingnews.com
Will Impey be the first African yellow jersey?
Symbolic return to Marseille
Simon Gerrans has taken the yellow jersey of the Tour de France, 22 years after his first mentor Phil Anderson became the first Australian to do so. His South African teammate of Orica GreenEdge Daryl Impey is on the verge of succeeding to him and become the first-ever African cyclist to lead the world’s biggest race the year that Kenyan-born Chris Froome was highly expected to be the one.
Since 2008, there’s no more time bonus awarded to the top three of intermediate sprints and stage finishes. Therefore, Gerrans, Impey and their Swiss teammate Michael Albasini are classified with the same time after they won the team time trial in Nice. Gerrans currently leads the race because of the addition of the places with a total of 32 as he finished 15th, 16th and first in the first three stages in Corsica. Impey is not much further back with a total of 41 after coming 11th, 8th and 22nd successively. Gerrans knows this rule very well as he won the 2012 Santos Tour Down Under over Alejandro Valverde this way despite having clocked the same time.
Source: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/will-impey-be-the-first-african-yellow-jersey
Would be great to see him in yellow