Giro d’Italia 2020 Stage 1 - As it happened

1. Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) 15:24
2. Joao Almeida (Deceuninck–Quick-Step) +22
3. Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates) "
4. Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) +23
5. Tobias Foss (Jumbo Visma) +31

Hes the final rider to finish and he is not going to trouble the top three, nor even the top ten. That confirms it then... Filippo Ganna wins his first ever Grand Tour stage and takes the maglia rosa, to go with the rainbow bands he won just eight days ago.

Impressive stuff from the Italian and a great first day in the race for Team Ineos, with Geraint Thomas comfortably placed in fourth.

We've seen a lot of the prodigy Alexandr Vlasov this year and he's pulled a better TT out of the bag than his team leader Jakob Fuglsang.

Now, how long will the Astana leadership persist with Fuglsang as their main man?

Very poor from the Dutchman. He's given up about the same margin to Thomas as Nibali, but he really ought to have done better than that.

The Dutchman who will lead Sunweb's GC charge has come home in 16:52, ceding about a minute to Thomas and 1'20" to the best time of Ganna.

Fuglsang's effort was even worse, he's shed about one and a half minutes to Thomas. Nibali limits his losses to about a minute, similar to Kelderman.

Those are massive rifts in the GC already, considering how many more time trials we have to come in this race.

Rafal Majka is off the ramp, last man to start this race.

The top three times are:

1. Ganna 15:24
2. Almeida 15:46
3. Bjerg 15:46

As Majka fails to beat the best time of Rik Zabel to the first and only KOM point of the race, that confirms the German as the leader of the king of the mountains classification when the race starts stage 2 tomorrow.

Miguel Angel Lopez has abandoned the race after that horrendous crash. An ambulance has arrived at the point where he crashed and he is on his way to hospital.

Meanwhile, Steven Kruijswijk is underway with his effort, here leading the Jumbo Visma team at a race he lost so painfully and memorably in 2016.

Three big GC riders off the ramp in quick succession. Wilco Kelderman, Jakob Fuglsang and Vincenzo Nibali are all underway with their 2020 Giro d'Italia campaigns.

It's unlikely, you would think, that any of these three will win the stage today, but their times in comparison to one another – and to the British duo of Yates and Thomas – might prove to be crucial.

All three have given up about 20 seconds on the first climb, compared with the best time of Rik Zabel who absolutely hooned it in an attempt to win the first blue jersey of the race. Still, surprising that they're so far off the pace.

I can no longer see his 'dot' on the telemetry and he hasn't registered a finish time yet.

Miguel Angel Lopez, the Colombian rider for Astana, has just had a really horrible looking crash at the second intermediate sprint point. It looked as though he hit a bump in the road, which knocked his hands from the bars and as a result he was almost pile drivered into the barriers at the side of the road by the momentum of his own bike.

He has every right to feel happy. There's nobody above him that stands a serious threat to his GC ambitions and he already has 26 seconds on Adam Yates, the hot favourite for the Giro overall.

The wind may have dropped a bit, but those two early corners on the course are still presenting problems for some riders. Chad Haga, winner of the final TT in last year's Giro, almost came a cropper just now.

That's huge. Ganna beats the best time set by Joao Almeida by a humongous margin of 22 seconds. Wallop. Everyone else can basically go home now.

He averaged over 58.8km/h across the whole course.

While Dennis didn't make the best account of himself, Thomas has excelled on this course and Ganna is also looking pretty good in the opening part. He has smashed the best time at the second intermediate timing point by a whopping 11 seconds.

If the Italian keeps upright, he'll probably take the race's first maglia rosa, with the team's GC leader perfectly placed in the top ten.

The world champion is off the ramp and you have to say he looks good in rainbows. He's the hot favourite for this stage and, with the wind dying down a bit more with every minute, things are looking great for him.

He smashes over the first timing point with ease and is approaching those treacherous turns on the descent.

Geraint Thomas can't quite take it... He's a second slower than Almeida over the course.

We've also seen a blistering time from another youngling, MIkkel Bjerg, of UAE Team Emirates, who was a mere half second slower than the Portuguese.

Almeida and Deceuninck stay in the hotseat.

This interview is an essential watch.

The Welshman sets the third best time on the intermediate timing point. He's just half a second slower than the best time, however, and he could easily claw this back.

We're hearing that the wind is dropping a little bit on the long straight part of the course that has provided many of the problems so far, which obviously augurs well for Thomas.

It's the young guys making the running at the moment with Joao Almeida setting the best result so far, 15:46.

Next behind him is the prodigiously talented Tobias Foss of Jumbo Visma with 15:55.

Geraint Thomas has just started his attempt and he will be keen to be the first over-30 to go under 16 minutes. He takes the first corner like a spider roller skating around a velodrome...

Rik Zabel the German rider for Israel StartUp Nation has clearly targeted the blue jersey for the lead of the climber's classification. He has elected to use the road bike to try and set the fastest time on the 1.1km climb, then we think switched onto his TT machine to complete the course.

It's a reminder that even on a TT day, there are so many storylines being intricately weaved into the great tapestry of a Grand Tour.

The Aussie former TT world champion is having a torrid time in this powerful crosswind has actually recorded a worse time to Yates over the first 11km.

Luca Covili is also not enjoying himself...

The words of Brian Smith, former WorldTour DS and Eurosport commentator just now. He's talking about the windy conditions out on course as we see one of the favourites, Rohan Dennis, being blown all over the road during his effort.

He may have ridden cautiously, but the British rider for Mitchelton Scott has crosses the line on a time of 16:13. That's not going to win him this stage, but crucially it's also not going to lose him the Giro.

After a huge amount of drama in the opening moments, we're getting out of the early hotshot TTers and into what in cricket you'd call 'the middle order'.

We're seeing Simon Yates now out on the course, taking these problematic corners very sedately – clearly feeling it's more important to stay upright all the way down than to strike any serious blows against his pink jersey rivals today.

This is the corner that spelled doom for Campenaerts on his run.

We've seen a new best time from Joao Almeida the Portuguese rider on Deceuninck–Quick-Step. He's a dark horse for the GC here this year and will be happy with that ride beating some of the best TTers in the world. Also going faster than Hamilton was Lawson Craddock. The Texan now sits second.

As Lawson Craddock crosses the line you could be forgiven for wondering if you're experiencing some sort of technical fault with your TV. But in fact no, that really is the way the new EF Pro Cycling kit looks.

And for a bit more on the story of how this happened in the staid and stuffy world of pro cycling, here's a longer read.

The other thing we haven't even had chance to talk about yet amid the mayhem is the mighty and mythical wind, the Scirocco. It's blowing up a storm and is just one more environmental factor wreaking havoc on course.

The American has ridden a great TT and, crucially, stayed upright throughout his run.

Campenearts finished with a time well below that, as did Dowsett. Currently second overall is Pello Bilbao, the Basque rider on Bahrain Merida.

It looks as though Campenaerts wasn't to badly hampered by his crash early on. He still has a faster time to the second timing point than Dowsett.

The timing points are at 1.1km and 9.4km into the course, which is 15.1km total. That first timing point is actually a KOM point, put there to ensure we have someone wearing the spotted climber's jersey tomorrow when the race rolls out of Alcamo. It adds a fun 'British hill climbing' element to the race and we've already seen a couple of riders really going for that KOM and the jersey.

Wow. This is going to be a crazy day in the Giro. Alex Dowsett, the Englishman, has also crashed on a seemingly innocuous bit of the course. Sad trombones all round, so far.

I think we'll see a lot of this today. There's a really tricky turn and Victor Campenaerts has come acropper. He'll be gutted as he was among the favourites for the maglia rosa at the end today.

Always great to see the British champ riding in a Grand Tour TT. We've already seen him have a little bit of a wobble in one of the turns. This is a crazy technical course, with twists, turns, steep inclines and cobbles. Yes, cobbles!

And a warm welcome to everyone, absolutely everyone, except Quinn Simmons.

We're here for the first stage of the 2020 Giro d'Italia, a downhill individual time trial. And I for one am stoked!

Tweet me your thoughts, feeling and emotions to @

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Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos), Simon Yates (Mitchelton–Scott), Vincenzo Nibali (Trek–Segafredo), Steven Kruijswijk (Team Jumbo–Visma) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) are all gunning for grand tour glory as the Giro d’Italia gets underway on Saturday but who will be in pink after the ITT on Stage 1?

The first rider out will be Alex Dowsett (Israel Start-Up Nation) at 12:10 with Rafal Majka (Bora – Hansgrohe) the last rider to get his quest for pink underway at 15:10. Time trial specialists Rohan Dennis (Team Ineos), Tony Martin (Team Jumbo–Visma) and Victor Campenaerts (NTT Pro Cycling) will all fancy their chances, but so too will newly crowned world champion Filippo Ganna (Team Ineos).

The 103rd edition of the Giro d'Italia will be shown live on eurosport.co.uk and the Eurosport app.

You can watch the entire race for £6.99 on Eurosport Player (monthly subscription), while an annual pass is £39.99.

Each day the Eurosport Player and the Eurosport app will stream uninterrupted coverage of each stage. We will also have rolling coverage online on the Eurosport.co.uk website and our social channels.

And don't forget, we are bringing you daily podcasts from the Bradley Wiggins Show - check in with your podcast platform of choice each evening.