Catch up with all the action from Paris-Nice live and free nightly, or jump onto SBS On Demand for all the replays!
In the traditional Team Time Trial (TTT) format, all riders in the team receive the finishing time of the fourth rider to cross the line.
In tonight’s TTT at Paris-Nice, the team will receive the time of the first rider across the line, and riders will receive their individual finishing times. This means a stage victory for the whole team of the fastest finisher in tonight’s stage. It also means teams with general classification contenders have been plotting and planning for the best way to launch their star athletes to the closing crucial metres of the stage.
At 32.2 kilometres, the stage itself is unusually long for a time trial. Starting and finishing in Dampierre-en-Burly, the route is triangular in shape, featuring three left turns and 171 metres of elevation.
Stage 3 of the 2023 Paris-Nice.
“In the last kilometre or so, we’re going to see Jumbo-Visma doing a leadout for Jonas Vingegaard to get every second possible, UAE (Team Emirates) doing the same for Tadej Pogačar.”
“That’s a pretty long team trial to drop in there,” SBS Commentator Dave McKenzie added. “With the change to the timings, it brings new strategy in there and it’s going to be interesting to see how they use riders up.
“It will be an exciting one to watch. I used to think team time trials were boring, but in the last ten years they’ve been some of the best races, I love them.
“The teams that train properly for these do a good job and the ones that don’t get found out”
Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) spoke about his own team’s preparation in a recent interview with SBS Sport’s Jamie Finch-Penninger.
“We have training camps in December and January and in both training camps we did quite a bit of team time trial practice. We also had some time before Ruta de Sol, and we also did some team time trial sessions there as we knew that there are quite a few coming up this year,” Haig said.
“31 kilometres (EDIT: actually 32) is quite far, to be honest. Especially for a week-long stage race. Hopefully, because it’s flat and not too technical the time gaps aren’t too big, but I think it might ruin the GC by stacking a team that’s particularly strong with three or four riders inside the top 10.”
Current GC leader Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) is realistic about extending his stint in the yellow jersey, but the TTT rule change means he will be giving the stage everything he has.
“We are here with (Mattias) Skjelmose to try to do GC so it will be really important tomorrow (tonight AEDT) to do a good team time trial for him,” Pedersen said.
"It’s different because if he wasn’t here we would just cruise around and have some fun for 32 kilometres but now it’s going to be a tough one and it will be full focus for us. I am 100 per cent ready to sacrifice myself in yellow for Skjelmose tomorrow.
“For a team like us who is not normally in the top three teams at TTT, it can be a good new thing to try and maybe it can work out well for us that we do ‘suicide pulls’ in the end and then Skjelmose just has to sprint himself for the finish line… I think it’s pretty nice from the organisers to try something new.”
Leaving nothing to chance, second overall, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) has been using the opening stages of the race to gain bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints.
“Six seconds might not be a lot,” said Pogacar on his Stage 2 time bonus.
“I’m really happy I gained a small margin and I can be more relaxed tomorrow (tonight AEDT) because it’s going to be a really tough team time trial. I don’t know the order yet but I think it doesn’t matter, it’s a long time trial and you cannot check the rest of the teams, you just have to focus on yourself, your team and do the job.
“A few seconds can be really important, you never know. As they say, every second counts.”
Pogacar currently sits two seconds behind Pedersen and 12 seconds ahead of notable rival Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma), times that will surely be shaken right up after tonight’s intriguing TTT.
Watch all the best cycling events in the world on SBS On Demand, with the Tour de France, Tour de France Femmes and much more.
