Giro Rosa stage 1: Trek-Segafredo takes the team time trial opener

Trek-Segafredo has won the opening team time trial of the Giro Rosa, and an Italian is wearing the maglia rosa after the first day of racing.

Related:

• Here’s how to watch the 2020 Giro Rosa in North America
• Tayler Wiles and Trek-Segafredo eye the Giro Rosa’s opening TTT

Led by Dutchwoman Ellen van Dijk, the American squad completed the 16.8-kilometer course in Grosseto in 20:05:99 minutes. Elisa Longo Borghini dons the race’s leader jersey. It’s the Italian’s first time in pink, as well as the first time in 12 years that an Italian woman has worn the maglia rosa at the Italian stage race.

“It was a team victory,” Longo Borghini said after the race. “Every one of these girls deserve a maglia rosa.”

Trek-Segafredo finished three seconds ahead of second-place Boels-Dolmans. Longo Borghini said that going fast from the gun was integral to the team’s success.

“We knew that we needed to have a fast start because there was a head- and then a head-crosswind and we could gain time there and at the end it was tailwinds,” she said. “So the difference you could make you could make in the beginning. So we started fast, and it was really solid going out and we managed to keep the distance from the other team.”

Trek-Segafredo was a favorite for Friday’s TTT; although only in its second season, the squad has shown strong team play since inception. In 2019, it won the Women’s World Tour TTT at Vårgårda, Sweden. Recently, the team has helped usher Briton Lizzie Deignan to victory at WWT races GP de Plouay and La Course.

For Longo Borghini, the win was emotional for reasons beyond her first pink jersey. The Italian spent the first few months of the coronavirus lockdown surrounded by the tragedy that plagued her country.

“It’s kind of an emotional moment for me even though I don’t realize it,” she said. “I just want to thank the entire team and everyone that was really close to me during the lockdown.”

“In the end, it’s a just a team effort and it doesn’t really matter who is crossing the line first. Maybe somebody could say that having the maglia rosa the first day is not good but for me it’s just a big emotion.”

Anna van der Breggen’s Dutch Boels-Dolmans team finished second at 20:08:75, followed by defending Giro Rosa champion Annemiek van Vleuten’s Mitchelton-Scott at 20.10.45.

The race continues tomorrow with a hilly 124.8 km stage from Civitella Paganico to Arcidossa, featuring some of the white gravel roads that characterize the Strade Bianche.

Stage schedule: Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile

9/11 – Stage 1: Grosseto – Grosseto (TTT, 16.8 km)
9/12 – Stage 2: Civitella Paganico – Arcidosso (124.8 km)
9/13 – Stage 3: Santa Fiora – Assisi (142.2 km)
9/14 – Stage 4: Assisi – Tivoli (170.3 km)
9/15 – Stage 5: Terracina – Terracina (110.3 km)
9/16 – Stage 6: Torre del Greco – Nola (97.5 km)
9/17 – Stage 7: Nola – Maddaloni (112.57 km)
9/18 – Stage 8: Castelnuovo della Daunia – San Marco la Catola (91.49 km )
9/19 – Stage 9: Motta Montecorvino – Motta Montecorvino (109.88 km)