Published May 8, 2021 03:24PM
Filippo Ganna wins the opening time trial of the 2021 Giro d'Italia
Filippo Ganna sets a mark of 8:47 on the 8.6 km opening TT of the Giro d'Italia.
One cool thing about SRAM's eTap system is that you can easily plug in remote shifters, such as the Clics at the end of the Zipp Vuka extensions. (Photo: Ben Delaney)
Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) stormed to victory in the opening time trial of the Giro d’Italia on Saturday, claiming the first pink jersey of the race for the second year in a row.
The reigning world time trial champion, who won four stages at last year’s Giro, set a time of 8:47 on the 8.6 km course in Turin, overhauling previous provisional leader Edoardo Affini (Jumbo-Visma) by 10 seconds to move into the hot seat. No one came particularly close to Ganna’s time from there on out, and he held on to secure the stage and thus the overall lead.
Affini’s time stood as the second fastest, with his Jumbo-Visma teammate Tobias Foss taking third on the day, 13 seconds behind Ganna.
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Among the GC hopefuls, Deceuninck-QuickStep teammates João Almeida and Remco Evenepoel both put in strong performances against the clock, with Almeida putting in the day’s fourth fastest time, 17 seconds behind Ganna, and Evenepoel in seventh on the day, 19 seconds back. Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech) was another strong GC performer, 24 seconds back in 11th. Simon Yates (BikeExchange) arrived 38 seconds down on Ganna, one second faster than Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers).