Stage 1:  Venaria Reale to Turin, TTT, 19.3km/12mi

By Cathy Mehl

Welcome to the 94th Giro d’Italia!  It’s the first Grand Tour of the season and for many the most difficult, beautiful and romantic.  With dynamic snow-capped peaks challenging the riders once the race goes to the high mountain and the huge number of tifosi that come out in full force to greet the peloton, the Giro is a three-week moving festival honoring the love of the bike.

Today’s opening stage was a team time trial through the streets of Turin on 19.3kms of basically flat road.  Living up to the reputation of Johan Bruyneel’s previous teams showing great success in this discipline, Team RadioShack riders blazed the course to take second place behind winners HTC-Highroad.  Italian road champion Marco Pinotti pulled on the first pink leader’s jersey.  Losing by only 10-seconds, The Shack looked solid and strong throughout the course, despite losing Ivan Rovny just after the start. 

Asked if the result was unexpected, Team Manager Johan Bruyneel answered in the affirmative, saying, “Yes, especially with the team we have brought here in that everyone is a good bike rider but some of them don’t have so much experience in a team time trial.  I think we did an extremely good time trial, especially considering that we lost Ivan Rovny when he crashed in the first corner (due to a flat tire) after only 700m.  He was one of the guys we were counting on so we continued on with eight.  At the split time we’d lost seven seconds and then at the end nine seconds, so you can see we were really riding as a unit in the last part with only seven strong riders.  I saw a good Popovych, both of the Robbies were strong, Selander rode well and Tiago was very good.  I’m very happy with the result.   This team time trial won’t play into the final results, but starting with one is very good for the team atmosphere and second place with these young guys feels like a victory,” Bruyneel concluded.

Johan talks to Popo after the stage

At age 23, Team RadioShack’s Bjorn Selander was the youngest rider with the best time and will wear the white jersey on Sunday in his first-ever Grand Tour.  Selander lives in Italy during the racing season and his parents were on hand today to honor his special achievement.  Not to be outdone by the youngsters, Robbie McEwen (38) was the first rider to cross the line for the Team, making him the highest placed Team rider in 10th place and showing that the mixture of young riders and experienced veterans could be the perfect combination in this year’s Giro.

First on the road for the 23 teams participating in the race was Omega Pharma-Lotto who set the bar with a time of 21:21.  The Belgian team held the top spot for almost an hour until HTC-Highroad unseated them by 22-seconds.  Next to challenge was Garmin-Cervelo, but they missed the mark and settled into third.  Team RadioShack was the next-to-last team to ride with only Movistar on course behind them.  With Rovny switching to his street bike after his crash, the others rode ahead, eventually dropping Manuel Cardoso along the way.  The remaining seven riders held form and continued to tick over the pedals, arriving at the finish line for a solid second place. 

Sunday’s stage is one for the sprinters at 244km/152mi in the longest stage of the race, starting in Alba and ending in Parma.  The Shack’s Robbie McEwen and Robbie Hunter will both be looking for stage wins in the 94th Giro d’ Italia.

Top Ten Results

1              HTC-Highroad    0:20:59  

2              Team RadioShack             0:00:10  

3              Liquigas-Cannondale      0:00:22  

4              Omega Pharma-Lotto                     

5              Team Garmin-Cervelo   0:00:24  

6              Lampre-ISD                         

7              Rabobank Cycling Team                0:00:26  

8              Saxo Bank Sungard          0:00:30  

9              Sky Procycling    0:00:37  

10            Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team

General Classification after Stage 1

1              Marco Pinotti (Ita) HTC-Highroad              0:20:59  

2              Lars Ytting Bak (Den) HTC-Highroad                          

3              Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Blr) HTC-Highroad                  

4              Mark Cavendish (GBr) HTC-Highroad                       

5              Craig Lewis (USA) HTC-Highroad                                 

6              Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team RadioShack               0:00:10  

7              Tiago Machado (Por) Team RadioShack                  

8              Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Team RadioShack                                 

9              Bjorn Selander (USA) Team RadioShack                                  

10            Robert Hunter (RSA) Team RadioShack

Team RadioShack on General Classification

11           Philip Deignan (Irl)                            

12           Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)

199         Manuel Antonio Leal Cardoso (Por)  0:03:16        

205         Ivan Rovny (Rus)  0:04:09             

Photos courtesy of Graham Watson and Philippe Maertens