Stage 1: Torino-Torino, 8.6km
Thus begins the greatest love affair in cycling, the Giro d’Italia. Get out your record players, Spotify playlists, and YouTube videos to have the appropriate accompanying soundtracks for the next three weeks: Verdi, Vivaldi, Rossini, Bocelli, and Pavarotti among others are the beloved native sons that shall serve as my ambient background for this first Grand Tour of the year. This 104th Giro d’Italia begins in Turin to celebrate the 160th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy. In 1861, Turin became the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Of all great Italian cities, why was Turin the first capital, you ask? Ah! Ah! It had all to do with the politics of the Unification process, synonymously called the Risorgimento movement. The Risorgimento is a great story if ever there was one: drama, intrigue, setbacks, heartbreak, rising-above inspiring moments, and of course larger-than-life central personalities who led the movement. Mazzini, Cavour, and—the most famous of all—Garibaldi are some of those larger-than-life personalities; the Giro still honors Garibaldi every year by naming their comprehensive roadbook after him. But of course, one of the most central players in the Risorgimento was also Victor Emmanuel II from the House of Savoy who historically ruled the Piedmont region for centuries—of which Turin has always been the historic capital. Victor Emmanuel was the talisman all rallied around: he was the one who provided the native noble blood and had the right ancestry to be made a King. Yes, in 1861 his reign began and his native Turin was the first capital of the united Kingdom of Italy. May I add as well to those who may already be rolling their eyes at an opening history lesson: the unification of Italy is truly something for cycling fans to celebrate. Without the unification in 1861, surely none would have ever created the Giro d’Italia some five decades later. Truly, truly, since the unification itself, the Giro d’Italia has been one of Italy’s greatest symbols and practical tools in continuing to solidify that unification process in addition to being a great sporting event in itself. It is thanks to the Giro and its daily news and content from all over the country that many Italians would learn what another far-flung region of Italy is really like. Truly, it is a chicken-and-egg scenario: Does the Giro better explain a place already unified, or does it actively unify the Italian peninsula even more? The logical, and beautiful answer is simply: “Why not both?” And with that initial historical tangent done-and-dusted, the significant anniversary and Turin’s pride of place have been distinguished. Now let us get down to business.
The Opening Turin Stage 1 Time Trial was a Prologue in all but name. The course was set in the center of town on the famous Po River—Italy’s mini-Amazon river—thus the course was flat with no significant rises of any note. To be an official Prologue, the Time Trial must be less than 8km. It seems in recent years the Grand Tour organizers have been avoiding formal Prologues and my hunch is because it confusingly throws off the rest of the race; for after the Prologue comes not Stage 2, but Stage 1. Then three weeks later the race shall finish on Stage 20 instead of Stage 21, and all—even the most experienced—will be slightly confused because it will slip their mind a Prologue had occurred. Additionally, in my opinion, if we strictly get “only” 21-days of racing I do not like to see one slightly “wasted” on less than 8km of racing; personally, I would be a great fan of a mandatory uniform opening Prologue as an extra 22nd day of racing on the Friday before or early Saturday morning of every Grand Tour. But the Giro organizers opted for an 8.6km Time Trial—just slightly above the 8km Prologue threshold—so that it could officially be called Stage 1. Short Opening Time Trials have their pros and cons. In the cons column, the “wasted-day” feeling has already been stated. A more practical con is that by this point there is not yet an official GC order thus teams can be strategic where they send their headliners in the start order—it is not mandatory for the favorites to start towards the end providing a thrilling finale. But for the pros column, the short length creates explosive intrigue. Minute after minute, rider by rider launches off to start their Giro d’Italia campaign, each rider gets a mini-spotlight and for viewers with short attention spans there is always something new to see. Additionally, since the length is so short, almost all riders—even most sprinters—give it their all, there full gas 100%, because they want to try to stay as high on the General Classification (GC) as they can. All hope to keep alive any potential chances to move into the maglia rosa—the Pink Giro Leader’s Jersey—sometime later during the opening flatter stages before the mountains create insurmountable time gaps. Yes, yes, every rider wishes to pull on the maglia rosa in their career, even if only for a day. Thus let us see who it was that pulled on the first maglia rosa of this year’s Giro.
It is fair to admit, it was not the most sensational Prologue or Opening Stage Time Trial anyone has ever seen. Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech) set the GC benchmark time of 9:11 early on the stage. Anything below that 9:11 mark was excellent or completely flying, anything over 20 seconds slower than 9:11 was subpar or bad, and anything within 20 seconds of the 9:11 was ultimately average on the day. It is a small beauty of time trials such as these to see how these categories organically establish themselves as the riders finish one by one, but as stated it is also not the most riveting of processes either. And so, for posterity purposes, allow me to rattle off the GC men who had the average and subpar days before we detail and praise the ones who lit up the stage for the rest of this recap. Egan Bernal, Pavel Sivakov, Dani Martinez (all of Ineos Grenadiers), Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange), Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Nippo), Vincenzo Nibali and Bauke Mollema (both of Trek-Segafredo), George Bennett (Jumbo-Visma), Marc Soler (Movistar), and even Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Fernando Gaviria (UAE) all finished in that “average” category—of course, it should be noted that none of the performances by these professional athletes was actually objectively average. Meanwhile Jai Hindley and Romain Bardet (both of Team DSM), Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), and Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) all got off to a bad start, and begin this Giro behind the metaphorical “eight-ball.” With such GC housekeeping done, let us praise those who rode O! so well against the clock.
After Vlasov’s impressive early time, it was from a surprising source that the action heated up. Down the straightaway came a streaking Black and Yellow Wasp Jersey surely of a Jumbo-Visma rider, but the rider was not Primoz Roglic or Wout Van Aert or Tom Dumoulin who are not riding this Giro. No, the Jumbo rider was the young Norwegian Tobias Foss in his debut Grand Tour. Many in-tune cycling fans have heard his name since he is the most recent winner of the Tour de l’Avenir, “The Race of the Future,” the most prestigious Under-23 race that has previously been won by the likes of Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogacar (UAE). Finally, this was the first time we were all seeing Foss come out swinging in the big leagues. He came in with a time of 9:00 to take up his position in the hotseat as the stage leader. All expect big things from l’Avenir winners at this point, yet still all were greatly impressed…until he was bested just a few minutes later by a teammate. Yes, within 20 minutes of Foss’ finish, down the finishing straightaway came Jumbo-Visma’s Italian Edoardo Affini to best Foss’ time by 3 seconds. Now this one was a bigger shock for at this point to all besides his inner circle, Edoardo Affini was just one of those names that help fill out the results. None could tell where this 8:57 Affini time had come from, especially when Quickstep’s pre-race favorite Remi Cavagna could only turn up a 9:05 time. When Jumbo’s Jos Van Emden crossed the line in 9:05 to match Cavagna, all began to suspect Jumbo-Visma had developed some new technical advantage for their riders—such race winning innovations are a beloved aspect of the sport. So perhaps Jumbo made some leap forward, but Jumbo’s George Bennett’s relatively mediocre performance undermines such a theory. Eventually one of Quickstep’s other pre-race favorites Joao Almeida came in right around 9:05 as well. It was a good performance for Almeida’s GC campaign, but he was unable to best the leading Jumbo pair. Only two other undiscussed options could.
The last two unmentioned pre-race favorites started one minute apart, they were of course Quickstep’s young Belgian superstar Remco Evenepoel and the reigning Time Trial World Champion the Italian Filipo “Top” Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers). Yes, yes, Remco Evenepoel starts this Giro d’Italia with as many question marks as one could possibly have since he has not raced since August when fell off a bridge mid-race at il Lombardia. He has never ridden a Grand Tour either, so three weeks of grueling racing in a row will surely be unknown territory for this youngster. But if this Remco has proven anything so far in his young career, he loves and is always ready to race. Meanwhile Filipo Ganna has seemed off his best in recent time trials by simply losing three of them in a row. All realize his biggest goal of the season will be the Olympic TT in Tokyo, but how would he fair here today? Both starting only a minute apart, were we already seeing a pre-Tokyo showdown? There was small and compact and spritely Evenepoel zipping and zooming along the course like a hummingbird; while Top Ganna smashed the pedals every stroke like the Incredible Hulk. They came through the intermediate ctime check within two seconds of each other, and on pace for the best times of the day. Evenepoel looked so light and efficient, sleek and smooth, swimming through the air, gliding at high speeds like an X-Wing through the Deathstar’s Trench. Alternatively, Top Ganna was barreling through every turn with the force of a bowling ball rolling a strike, or a cannonball bashing a hole in a ship’s hull; he cruised down the straightaways like a bulky fighter engine primed to break the sound barrier ten-times over. Yes, the contrasting styles were on full display, and it was beautiful to watch. But before any realized it—for we were in such a trance watching both the praiseworthy performances—Remco Evenepoel came down the final straightaway to finish in a time of 9:06 to about match his Quickstep teammates, Almeida and Cavagna. Remco faded a little bit in the second half. He would not win the day, but he did get his Giro GC campaign off on the right foot: already 20 seconds on Simon Yates and Egan Bernal, the only others with smaller Overall Odds.
In less than a minute after Remco crossed the finish line, the other trance-inducing one, Filipo Ganna—who was born to be a time trialist—scorched down the final straightaway. Last year, he won the Opening Stage Time Trial in Palermo, here in Turin he would go two-for-two. Where Remco positive split the second half, Ganna had a superb and stunning negative split. He crushed Affini’s second-place 8:57 time by a full 10 seconds—an incredibly wide winning margin over only 8.6km. Affini literally tipped his hat to this Top Ganna. Ah! Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe we have not seen such Opening TT dominance since the days of Monsieur Prologue, Chris Boardman. Yes, this Filipo Ganna is something else! Surely, Tokyo is the top goal this year, but of course he shall not roll over on home roads. O! Tokyo is not until late July, now it is May! Now it is time for the Giro with a beautiful maglia rosa prize on the line. Yes, with this Time Trial victory Ganna begins his second stint in Pink. The maglia rosa looks O! so good on everyone, but I noted last year that Ganna looked particularly stylish—perhaps even as good as a certain Musketeer looks in Yellow. O! How excited I am to see him again in the Pink Jersey tomorrow as the Giro d’Italia properly begins its journey.
Historic Turin served up a tasty appetizer, a well-run opening ceremony. It was an excellent time to spotlight Turin’s gravitas and significance to the Giro and all Italian history. But with its completion, let the real adventure—the yearly Italian Odyssey—properly begin.
Cycling Odysseys 