Italy's Filippo Ganna wins Giro opening time trial stage

World champion Ganna, riding for Ineos, pulled on the leader's pink jersey after finishing nearly 10 seconds faster than compatriot Edoardo Affini of Jumbo–Visma, repeating his opening stage victory of 2020

Italy's Filippo Ganna won the opening stage of the Giro d'Italia on Saturday, a 8.6km time-trial through Turin.

Jumbo-Visma took a two-three on the podium with Tobias Foss finishing third.

Of the long list of GC contenders, João Almeida, Remco Evenepoel (both Deceuninck-Quick-Step) and Aleksander Vlasov (Astana Premier Tech) took slim early gains. Almeida finished fourth on the stage to emerge at the top of the pink jersey players on the 8.6km opening test.

Remco Evenepoel looked red hot in his first race back after eight months away from racing, finishing seventh on the stage and right at the top of the GC contenders, just one second behind his teammate Almeida.

Pre-race pink jersey favorites Simon Yates and Egan Bernal finished within one second of each other at 9.25 and 9.26 respectively – 21 and 22-seconds down on Almeida.

Outside contenders Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers), Hugh Carthy (EF Education Nippo), George Bennett (Jumbo-Visma) and Vincenzo Nibali (Trk Segafredo) finished within seconds of Yates and Bernal as the classification pack sits tightly coiled.

Jai Hindley, Romain Bardet (both DSM), Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious) came out losers of the day, all around 10 seconds or more back on Yates and Bernal.

Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers), Matthias Brändle (Israel Start-Up Nation) and then Foss were the first riders to enjoy time in the hot seat after starting off ahead of the main favorites and GC contenders. Foss wasn’t sitting down long before teammate Affini dethroned him with his blazing time that would see him finish second on the stage.

Affini was still in the hotseat when the major players rolled down the ramp in the final hour, with Almeida pushing close to the fastest time.

Ganna was one of the last down the ramp, and as soon as he went through the intermediate time check it seemed inevitable that “Top Ganna” would ride into pink, bettering Affini at the mid-way point and taking even more time in the back-half.

VIDEO: 2021 Giro d'Italia Stage 1 Final Km

2021 Giro d'Italia Stage 1 Top 10

1 GANNA Filippo (INEOS Grenadiers) 0:08:47
2  AFFINI Edoardo (Jumbo-Visma) 0:10
3 FOSS Tobias (Jumbo-Visma) 0:13
4 ALMEIDA Joao (Deceuninck-Quick Step) 0:17
5 CAVAGNA Rémi (Deceuninck-Quick Step) 0:18
6 VAN EMDEN Jos (Jumbo-Visma) 0:18
7 EVENEPOEL Remco (Deceuninck-Quick Step) 0:19
8 WALSCHEID Max (Qhubeka ASSOS) 0:19
9 BRINDLE Matthias (Israel Start-Up Nation) 0:22
10 MOSCON Gianni (INEOS Grenadiers) 0:23