Was it just the nature of this shortish time trial, or did the opening stage of the 2015 Tour de France herald a changing of the guard and the beginning of an ongoing narrative that will run for the next three weeks? We’ll have to wait to find out, but while the partisan Dutch crowd saw their home favourite Tom Dumoulin fall short, Rohan Dennis set an early benchmark that saw first Tony Martin and then Fabian Cancellara – with seven World Championship time trial wins between them – fail to match.
