Exactly eighteen and a half kilometres had to be covered this Thursday in the Burgos region, from Santa Maria del Campo to Pampliega, in the only time trial of the race of the same name. “The course was relatively straightforward, very rolling, with only a headwind in the first ten kilometres which made the time trial a little more difficult”, explained Thierry Bricaud. Eddy Le Huitouze, who started in the top thirty, took the provisional lead with a time of 20’54, but only for a few moments. Edoardo Affini, just behind him, improved his time by around fifty seconds. In the end, the Italian rouleur was only edged out by Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) for the stage win, the Australian having clocked 19’51. Eddy Le Huitouze maintained the best time of any rider in the Groupama-FDJ cycling team, finishing 26th on the day.

Rémy Rochas finished 1’07 behind the winner and Enzo Paleni 1’18 back. We tried to do well, but we didn’t set any exceptional times,” said Thierry. Eddy did a decent time, and they all did it well, because that’s always useful”. Friday sees the Iberian event come to a close with a 156-kilometre fifth stage to Condado de Treviño. It’s a bit bumpy, but there’s room for a sprint,” concluded Thierry. We’ve seen how well Matt has done on the previous stages, and that could suit him, so we’re going to try to do everything we can to give ourselves a good opportunity.

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