Simon Gerrans takes Giro lead as Orica-GreenEDGE win opening team time trial

Australian rider, Simon Gerrans, has taken the maglia rosa in this year’s Giro d’Italia after being the first Orica-GreenEDGE rider across the line in the stage one team time trial. Gerrans’ team set a time of 19m26s over the 17.6km course, beating Tinkoff-Saxo by seven seconds. Astana came third, 13 seconds behind the winning time.

Riders usually arrive in San Remo with almost 300km in their legs at the end of the longest day of racing of the year. But today they had raced just 17.6km having only set off from nearby San Lorenzo al Mare.

While the day began at the foot of the Cipressa climb used in Milan-San Remo, the course steered clear of this in favour of a flat route alongside the coast. Passing through a 1.6km tunnel at one point, teams rode almost exclusively along the Riviera dei Fiori, a bike path which follows the route of an old railway line.

Fabio Aru’s Astana team set the early mark with 19m39s, but Orica-GreenEDGE eventually went past that and while Alberto Contador’s Tinkoff-Saxo team ran them close, they couldn’t dislodge the Australian team from the top spot. This was actually the second year in a row that Orica-GreenEDGE had won the opening team time trial after last year putting Svein Tuft into pink on his birthday with a win in Belfast.

Gerrans said he was happy with the result after breaking both his collarbone and elbow in the off season.

"I think technically we can be very happy. We set a really fast time, and left it all out there. It was planned that I would be the first over the line. It's an enormous honour to wear the Maglia Rosa.

“This team has built a reputation for Team Time Trials and we have some real specialists here, so this result is a credit to them. Hopefully my season starts again today. It's been very hard so far, but hopefully there are really good things to come."

Team Sky, which has failed to include any British riders in its team (indeed there are none in the entire race), finished a disappointing ninth. However, team leader Richie Porte wasn’t unduly concerned about finishing 27 seconds back.

"I think we were good today. Everyone was smooth and solid. We did a good job. The race is not going to be won today. At the end of the day it's seconds now but it's going to be minutes in the end. You can get carried away during the whole first week about losing seconds. It's not ideal to lose time but it's not the end of the world. It's nice to just get the race started. Coming in here I feel fresh and ready to keep fighting."