American Brandon McNulty pulls on the Red Jersey at the Vuelta Espana

McNulty powered his way to time trial opening stage victory ahead beating Mathias Vacek and Wout van Aert in Lisbon

Brandon McNulty snatched victory on the opemning time trail stage of the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday, edging out Mathias Vacek as the year's third Grand Tour began in Lisbon.

American UAE Team Emirates rider McNulty was the penultimate rider to set off on the 12 kilometre run to Oeiras from Lisbon in Portugal and beat Vacek by two seconds, with Wout van Aert taking third in a thrilling finale.

Defending champion Sepp Kuss finished over half a minute down on general classification contender and three-time champion Primoz Roglic who came in eighth, 17 seconds behind McNulty's 12 minutes 35 seconds. Slovenian veteran Roglic, aiming for a fourth overall title, got off to a strong start as the Vuelta.

"I was hoping for something good today but this is really hard to believe for me," said 26-year-old McNulty, "I knew if something crazy happened I could (do it), so I guess something crazy happened."

Portuguese UAE rider Joao Almeida, started the race with big support on home soil, impressed and finished two seconds behind Roglic.

Italian Visma-Lease a bike rider Edoardo Affini set the pace early on with a time of 12 minutes 43 seconds and it looked potentially a winning one when European time trial champion and stage favourite Josh Tarling came in 0.28 seconds behind.

However Czech rider Vacek powered ahead of Affini by six seconds and held the lead until McNulty stormed in, "I worked hard for this... I gave it everything and couldn't do much better, I'm really happy with it," Lidl-Trek rider Vacek said while waiting to see if he could hold on The wind was really strong but we knew that and I think it was the same for everyone, it was about pure power."

Last down the starting ramp, Visma's Van Aert led at the intermediate checkpoint but did not have enough to depose McNulty, "I didn't feel great, too soon it started to hurt and it was a long way to the finish... the feeling was not how I hoped for," said the Belgian.

Sunday's second stage in Portugal, takes riders 194km from Cascais to Ourem.

VIDEO: 2024 La Vuelta Stage 1 Highlights

2024 La Vuelta Stage 1 Top 10

1  MCNULTY Brandon 12.35,28 0.00,00 57.197
2  VACEK Mathias 12.37,45 0.02,17 57.033
3  VAN AERT Wout 12.38,08 0.02,80 56.986
4  KÜNG Stefan 12.41,85 0.06,57 56.704
5  AFFINI Edoardo 12.43,20 0.07,92 56.604
6  TARLING Joshua 12.43,48 0.08,20 56.583
7  SCHMID Mauro 12.51,79 0.16,51 55.974
8  ROGLIC Primož 12.52,21 0.16,93 55.943
9  ARMIRAIL Bruno 12.53,72 0.18,44 55.834
10  ALMEIDA João 12.54,94 0.19,66 55.746