Joshua Tarling dominates Gran Camino opening stage - INEOS Grenadiers rider beats Rafferty and Castrillo in neutralized time-trial

Stage 1 of Gran Camiño was a windy time-trial raced in road bikes, with European time-trial champion Joshua Tarling taking a dominant win to kick of his triumphs for the 2024 season.

Even before the stage started there was already quite a lot of drama. The very bad weather was pushing for the necessity of cancelling the stage or changing it's expected format. The race organizers eventually decided that overall classification times would not be taken and the riders would compete in regular road bikes.

Read also

Profiles & Route Gran Camino 2024

Riders hence had the choice to not race for time, since they would not be taken into account for the GC. The stage win was still up for grabs however. Many strong figures made it clear that they aimed for a result; the likes of Michal Kwiatkowski and Wilco Kelderman headlined the top of the charts but other big figures began to arrive.

Xabier Mikel Azparren surprisingly dethroned Kelderman from the lead ahead of the last row of contenders, Darren Rafferty followed, but Joshua Tarling immediately took the lead 42 seconds ahead of the previous rider.

A few riders made the effort to make it up to Tarling's time but unsuccessfully. Darren Rafferty and Pablo Castrillo rode to second and third on the day; a strong result for both, but Tarling takes the first lead of the race.

Read also

Jonas Vingegaard discusses UAE's Tour de France super team, Roglic and Evenepoel; and absence of Wout van Aert: "Wout is Wout and he also needs his chances"

Wout van Aert confident of Visma victories this weekend: "We’ll have a super strong team for Opening Weekend"