Giro d'Italia 2023: Remco Evenepoel dominates field to claim stunning time trial win on Stage 1 & take race lead

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) blitzed the field with a dominant display in the opening stage of Giro d’Italia – a 19.6km time trial from Fossacesia Marina to Ortona.

The 23-year-old stopped the clock at 21:18 in what Rob Hatch on commentary called a “performance for the ages” that bettered the provisional leader Joao Almeida’s time by 29 seconds – Almeida would eventually finish third.

Time trial specialist Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) was second 22 seconds down on the Soudal rider and Ganna's team-mate Tao Geoghegan Hart finished fourth.

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) – widely recognised as joint favourite alongside Evenepoel – finished 43 seconds slower than the Stage 1 winner.

Laurens Huys (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) was the first down the ramp to start the 106th Giro d’Italia. He was overtaken at one point by Campbell Stewart (Team Jayco AlUla) who started second, but he eventually managed to be the first to cross the finish line and set the time to beat at 24:28.

Stewart swiftly took the lead and finished in 23:38. With a new time to beat, it was South African rider Ryan Gibbons (UAE Team Emirates) who was soon in the hot seat as the first to drop under 23 minutes, but only just, with a finish time of 22.56.

He remained there for a few minutes before it was Nico Denz’s (BORA-hansgrohe) turn to take over in the lead with a time of 22:41. He had barely had time to sit down before it was South African national ITT champion Stefan de Bod (EF Education-EasyPost) who had taken the lead in a time of 22:32.

His lead remained for some time, almost an hour in fact, and in the meantime the likes of Bob Jungels (BORA -hansgrohe), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates), and Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) were all unable to significantly close the gap.

It was Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) who finally managed to take the lead and knock De Bod off the hot seat, with around 12 seconds shaved off the leading time. With Pederson now in the lead, De Bod dropped to second while Pavel Sivakov (INEOS Grenadiers) was in third with a time of 22:36.

The Dane’s time was enough to hold off a number of competitors before Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) gave himself a significant lead of 22:06. Just after McNulty crossed the line, Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal-Quick Step) recorded a time of 22:30 which moved him into third and dropped De Bod from the top three.

However, he was soon dropped to fourth by a time of 22:27 from Michael Hepburn (Team Jayco AlUla). Fellow Australian Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) then took a marginal lead with 22:04 and Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ) moved into third ahead of Pedersen with a time of 22:15.

Geoghegan Hart then produced the time trial of his life with an impressive ride and was the first rider that crossed the line under the 22 minute mark with a time of 21:58. Almeida was then the next rider to take to the hot seat with an 11-second lead on Geoghegan Hart and a ride that kept him in the top three for the rest of the day.

The competition soon hotted up even further as Evenepoel, Roglic, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), and Ganna went down the ramp within minutes of each other. From the point when he reached the first time check it was clear that Evenepoel was onto a winner. He passed the first time point with a leading time of 10:05, 20 seconds faster than his closest competitor at that point had been. Roglic went through the same point significantly slower in 10:31, Kung in 10:27, and Ganna in 10:17.

At the second time point Evenepoel had extended his 20-second lead to 33 seconds, crossing in 17:10. It was then hardly surprising that he would go on to cross the finish line in 21:18 with a mind-blowing ride that secured him the maglia rosa after Stage 1. Roglic and Kung would both go on to finish in 22:10, and a time of 21:40 secured second place for Ganna.

The overall standings finished with the Belgian in first place in the general classification with a 22-second lead on Ganna, and Almeida in third a further nine seconds back.

Tomorrow’s stage sees the sprinters take centre stage as the peloton travel from Teramo to San Salvo, 201km along the Italian coastal roads. The route includes a few Cat. 4 climbs but remains relatively flat for the most part.

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