Filippo Ganna, after winning the time trial of the Vuelta a España: "I am very happy, after the Giro to win here was my dream"

After six wins in the Giro d'Italia, Filippo Ganna has finally won a stage victory in a different Grand Tour. The Italian was very satisfied at the finish line for being able to beat Remco Evenepoel in the Valladolid time trial of the Vuelta a Espana.

"I'm very happy, after the Giro, winning here was my dream, my goal, today I can say that I have done it. Now starts another Vuelta with 2 more weeks in which we will try to do things in the stages," the Italian said in a post-race interview. After having been beaten by Remco Evenepoel at the World Championships amidst great form as well as the opening Giro d'Italia win, it was anything but a sure win.

He was asked if he saw this victory in the Vuelta as a revenge with Remco after what happened in the last World Championships, in which he took silver and the Belgian took gold. "I don't know if it's worth the same, but I worked hard to be there to help G (Geraint Thomas, ed.), we put a lot into the Giro as well, so to be here now is wonderful, fighting for a goal of a good high position is hard, but we're going to try."

Ganna departed early on and took the hot seat. It was known that his rivals would be some of the last to start their effort, but this time around it was a happy ending for the INEOS Grenadiers rider, who managed to race the 25 kilometers 16 seconds faster than the Soudal - Quick-Step leader.

On the day, Ganna confessed that everything went perfectly: "Yes, the course was beautiful, the weather was very good, we were lucky with the weather as well, so great." The British team hence save a bit of a race that has so far gone horribly with crashes taking out all of their GC hopes one by one.