Remco Evenepoel wins opening Giro d'Italia time-trial, takes serious time on GC competition

Remco Evenepoel has proven unbeatable! The World Champion has dominated stage 1 of the Giro d'Italia, already taking serious time on the competition and putting on the pink jersey.

The 19.9-kilometer day had the likes of Evenepoe, Roglic, Ganna and Küng as main favourites and start consecutively. Nico Denz and Stefan De Bod put in strong times early on which would dictate the pace on the day, but as the afternoon grew the biggest favourites began their efforts and the speed increased more and more.

Mads Pedersen put in the first serious time in the fight for the stage win with 22:20 minutes. However the GC riders would come in with great legs and soon enough the GC battle kicked off. Brandon McNulty, Jay Vine and Tao Geoghegan Hart all jumped into the hot seat at some point, with the times coming down from 22 minutes ahead of the start of the main favourites.

João Almeida put in 21:48 to lead the stage ahead of many of his rivals, but his time would be no match for the rider that followed. Remco Evenepoel put in a performance for the ages in his opening effort at the Giro, taking a whole 29 seconds on the already very strong time of Almeida.

At the finish it was known this would be the winning time, as the intermediate points already revealed massive gaps to even the strongest of specialists. Almeida finished the stage in third place, with Filippo Ganna riding to second 22 seconds back.

However the damage had been done. The stage was decided, Evenepoel won 43 seconds on Primoz Roglic and 55 on Geraint Thomas for example, two riders who were expected to succeed against the clock. He starts stage 2 tomorrow in the race lead already, with the pink jersey on his shoulders.