On Thursday evening, Team Sunweb were the fastest team over the 24.3-kilometre Ladies Tour of Norway team time trial, a stand-alone event before the three-day race starting Friday 17 August. Sports director Hans Timmermans was happy with the result and confident in his team`s strength looking forward to the defence of their World Championships TTT title in September. The six-rider team - consisting of Lucinda Brand, Leah Kirchmann, Liane Lippert, Floortje Mackaij, Coryn Rivera and Ruth Winder - won convincingly, beating Mitchelton-Scott by 38 seconds and Cervélo-Bigla by 1:09. `The six riders made the difference, but we have 10 very strong riders who can come in and compete,` said Timmermans. `The whole team works together like a machine. After doing the reconnaissance twice, we knew that it would be a difficult TTT. We executed it well, using the particular strengths of our riders.`ADVERTISEMENT The Team Sunweb riders also received a special prize on the podium - one that is not unusual for Norwegian races. 15 kilograms of salmon were awarded to the winning team, and Team Sunweb got another 10kg on top of that as they were also the fastest up the finishing climb to the Fredriksten fortress. This will likely keep the team fuelled for a while. Amanda Spratt and her Mitchelton-Scott team finished second in the TTT, and the Australian took comfort from the team`s progress in the discipline. `We wanted to challenge our pacing. We had lost 20 seconds to Sunweb at the first time check, but from there to the finish, we only lost another 17 seconds. That gives us some good points to work on,` Spratt said.
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