At more than 58 km / h, the Italian Filippo Ganna rushed Saturday in Palermo towards the first pink jersey of the Giro which has already established gaps between the favorites, in favor of the Welshman Geraint Thomas.
As expected, the new time trial world champion dominated all his rivals on the 15.1 kilometers of a super-fast course, descending from Monreale Cathedral to central Palermo.
On a gigantic gear (60x11), the Piedmontese from the Ineos team pushed back his followers, the Portuguese Joao Almeida and the Danish Mikkel Bjerg, to 22 seconds.
“Ganna was at another level,” agreed Berg, one of the youngest competitors of the Giro (21), three times titled in hopes in the time trial of the World hopefuls.
First Giro and, therefore, first pink jersey: Ganna (24 years old), who is participating in the Giro d'Italia for the first time in her career, has only experienced one very relative failure on this day in the heavy temperature, more than 30 degrees.
Driving at an average of 58.831 km / h, he only came close to the speed record in a Giro time trial held since 2001 by the Belgian Rik Verbrugghe (58.874 km / h) over a significantly shorter distance (7, 1 km).
This year, the 4-kilometer world record holder achieved an almost flawless performance in the time trials.
After his second place in January at the Tour de San Juan, behind the Belgian Remco Evenepoel - the big absentee from the Giro because of his fall in mid-August in Lombardy - he has won each time since the resumption of competitions (championship of Italy, Tirreno-Adriatico, world championship, Giro).
Everything now designates Ganna, the giant of Piedmont (1.93 m), so that he inscribes his name on the palmares of the hour record.
Briton Bradley Wiggins, who was dispossessed of his record by Belgian Victor Campenaerts last year (55.089 km), even sees him reach 57-58 kilometers.
Giro cut short for Lopez
Campenaerts, for his part, lost all chance in Sicily due to a crash in a downhill corner.
"I knew it was dangerous, I was very careful but I fell all the same," stormed the Belgian.
"I am sure the road has not been cleaned."
Campenaerts underlined the role of the wind which made the race more dangerous.
Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) realized this the hard way: he lost control of his bike due to a hole in the roadway and ended his race in the barriers.
For the third in the 2018 edition, also winner of the Col de la Loze stage in the Tour de France, the Giro lasted less than ten minutes.
In the match between the favorites, Thomas took a clear advantage, reinforced by the change in weather conditions which penalized the last starters.
Briton Simon Yates, who started before him, gave up only 26 seconds.
On the other hand, the loss of the Italian Vincenzo Nibali exceeded the minute, those of the Dutch Steven Kruijswijk and the Danish Jakob Fuglsang approached the minute and a half.
Sunday, the second stage links 149 kilometers from Alcamo to Agrigento where the race passes through the Valley of the Temples before the final climb taken during the 1994 World Cup. The finish hill, 3.7 kilometers long (at 5.3%) , advantage punchers / climbers.
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