Giro d Italia Stage 1 2021-05-08

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Event
Giro d Italia Stage 1

Date
Sat 8th May 2021 (UTC)
Sat 8th May 2021 (Local)

Timestamp
2021-05-08T11:00:00

Time

11:00:00 UTC (13:00:00 Local)

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League
UCI World Tour

Season
2021

Round
20

Status

Location

Video Highlights

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Description

For the fourth year in succession, the Giro started with a short individual time trial. This year, the Giro started with an 8.6 kilometres (5.3 mi) test against the clock in Torino. The course was flat all the way through, which meant that the power riders were widely considered as the favourites for the stage victory.

The early benchmark time was set by Team Jumbo–Visma's David Dekker, the second rider to start, who completed the course in a time of 9' 19". His time would be beaten by the next rider, Victor Campenaerts of Team Qhubeka Assos, who took the lead by a few hundredths of a second. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers) beat his time by 5 seconds to move into the hot seat, until Matthias Brändle (Israel Start-Up Nation) set a time of 9' 10". Later in the day, Dekker's teammate, Tobias Foss, set the new standard with a time of 9' 00", becoming the first rider to average more than 57 km/h (35 mph). However, his teammate Edoardo Affini broke the 9-minute barrier and blitzed the course in a time of 8' 57". He stayed at the hot seat for a long time before the time trial world champion, Filippo Ganna, rode the course as one of the last riders to go down the start ramp. He dominated the course, averaging more than 57 km/h (35 mph) and finishing in 8' 47", 10 seconds quicker than Affini. It was enough to get him the stage victory and the first maglia rosa for the second year in succession; in doing so, Ganna would also be the first leader of the points and young rider classifications.

In terms of the GC, last year's revelation, João Almeida (Deceuninck–Quick-Step), was the best of the favorites, finishing 4th with a time of 9' 04". His teammate, Remco Evenepoel, who was riding his first race since his crash at last year's Il Lombardia, finished 7th with a time of 9' 06". Another GC contender who set a fast time was Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana–Premier Tech), who finished 11th with a time of 9' 11", while many of the other main GC contenders were clustered around 35 to 40 seconds back of Ganna.

After Krists Neilands (Israel Start-Up Nation) completed his time trial, he crashed while riding back to the team hotel and fractured his collarbone. As a result, the Latvian was forced to withdraw from the race, being the first rider to do so.