There has been much success for home riders over the past week and Damiano Caruso continued the trend as he took the race lead on the first stage of Tirreno-Adriatico thanks to BMC’s win in the opening time trial around the seafront of Lido Di Campoire.
It was a third straight win against the clock for BMC, who covered the 21.5-kilometre course in 22 minutes and 19 seconds, finishing five seconds ahead of Mitchelton-Scott, who gave Caleb Ewan and Adam Yates fine chances of taking the leaders’ jersey from Caruso over constructive days. There was also some relief for Team Sky making a good start to a race in which a result would be very welcome and finishing nine seconds back, putting aside memories of their disastrous start last year when two riders suffered tyre blowouts and finished nearly two minutes down.
It was a day of contrasting fortunes for British riders, with Adam Yates being put into a superb position by an awesome Mitchelton-Scott team, whilst Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas benefitted from Team Sky’s immense strength to gain time on a number of their rivals. The news for Brits was not all rosy, however, with Mark Cavendish (Dimension-Data) sustained lacerations to his face and road rash on his right arm and leg in a serious crash, leaving his participation for the rest of the race in doubt at the time of writing.
The first team off the ramp was Movistar, who could not repeat their third-place finish of a year ago, making what had looked like an uphill battle for Mikel Landa to contend for the overall title this week even harder. Lotto-Jumbo would have hoped for a better opening time as well, given the amount of time trial power they had to support Primoz Roglic, who ought to enjoy much of the terrain this week including an individual time trial. Quick-Step Floors managed to put Bob Jungels into a good position by finishing just 15 seconds behind BMC, which gives ace sprinter Fernando Gaviria the young riders’ jersey as well.
Tom Dumoulin would have enjoyed this route, but he has been suffering from illness in what has been a troubled start to the season and he looked pained as Sunweb rode to a very respectable fifth place, 25 seconds off the leaders. They can take comfort from the fact that Wilco Kelderman is well placed for an assault on the overall, however.
A delighted Caruso was pleased to have the leader’s jersey on his home soil. “This is my favourite race because we are in Italy and that is always a pleasure to race here”, he told Cyclingnews, whilst also rueing the absence of team leader Richie Porte. “Without Richie, it is more difficult for us. We take it easy day by day and we see what will happen," he said. When asked if he would be the team's GC leader, Caruso said he did not know. "We have Greg Van Avermaet with us for the stages. I want to try and fight for the GC, but [we will take it] day by day."
The Top 10
1 BMC Racing 00:22:19
2 Mitchelton-Scott 00:00:04
3 Team Sky 00:00:09
4 Quick-Step Floors 00:00:15
5 Team Sunweb 00:00:25
6 Katusha-Alpecin 00:00:29
7 Bora-Hansgrohe 00:00:30
8 Trek-Segafredo 00:00:39
9 UAE Team Emirates 00:00:45
10 EF Education First-Drapac 00:00:45
