UCI Road World Championships - Day one | Limburg, The Netherlands
Additional Reporting: Team Sky
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Team Sky placed ninth at the world team time trial championships whilst while Emma Pooley and Sharon Laws took bronze in the Women's TTT for AA-Drink - Leontien.nl behind Orica - Ais and winners Team Specialized - Lululemon.
Pooley and Laws fought hard to the end of the course and crossed the line in 48:30.95,maintaining their position throughout the race, taking third position on the podium.
2008 Olympic silver medallist and former world time trial championEmma Pooley told BBC Sport shortly after the race: "I think we wanted to show something as a team that we can do a really good result.
"It's a bit sad the team is coming to an end. This is the kind of thing team sponsors get into team sponsoring for and it's brilliant to be on a World Championships podium, which doesn't usually happen.But I think we made a point, which is good."
In the men's race, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Alex Dowsett, Juan Antonio Flecha, Sergio Henao, Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas dug deep on the 53.2-kilometre course to clock a time of one hour, four minutes and 49 seconds.
At the finish it was Omega Pharma-Quickstep who came out on top, the Belgian squad riding well as a unit and finishing with all six riders at the line in Limburg.
1:03:17 was the time good enough to win the inaugural running of the trade team showdown, BMC Racing coming close in the challenge for the gold medals, 3.2 seconds back.
The most famous climb in Holland, the Cauberg caused problems for a number of teams as the crucial fourth timed man became distanced heading into the final kilometre.
Orica-GreenEDGE rounded out the podium 47 seconds back as the World Championship week kicked off with a tough undulating parcours.
Top honours
A new addition to the World Championship programme, 32 teams were in action from the top three tiers of international cycling in a bid to secure bragging rights for the next 12 months.
Six-man squads rolled down the ramp in Sittard-Geleen with at least four riders needing to still be in touch at the finish to stop the clock.
As the WorldTour teams began to arrive at the line it was Liquigas-Cannondale who went quickest early on, setting a benchmark time of 1:04:21 which would eventually be good enough for fourth spot.
The contest quickly began to look like a two-horse race with Omega Pharma-Quickstep and BMC lighting up the time sheets.
In the end it was the combination of Tony Martin, Tom Boonen, Peter Velits, Kristof Vandewalle, Sylvain Chavanel and Niki Terpstra who took to the top step of the podium.
