Giro d'Italia: First blood to Nibali in GC battle
2013 champion s﷽imply happy the race is underway after 'pressure' of long build-up
Relief was the overwhelming emotion for 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Vincenzo Nibali as he got his 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Giro d'Italia underway and made small but significant gains on his general classification rivals over the 9.8 kilome♐tres that made up the opꦕening time trial in Apeldoorn.
Nibali (Astana) cl🦩ocked a time of 11:22 on the flat, fast course to finish 16th on the stage, 19 seconds behind winner Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin). Dumoulin emerged as a GC rider at last year's Vuelta a España but has repeatedly made clear that the overall is not on his agenda here, which leaves Nibali at the top of the pile after the opening rally.
The Italian put 21 seconds into last year's podium finisher Mikel Landa (Team Sky), and five seconds into last year's Tour de France third-place finisher Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Rigoberto Urán was distanced by 14 seconds, Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) by 19, Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) by 13, and Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) by three. Andrey Amador, fourth at last year's Giro, was third on the stage and 13 seconds quicker than Nibali, but the Spaniard is set to sp🦋end most of his efforts this month working for Valverde.
Despite the drawing of first blood, Nibali was most happy simply that the Giro was underway, with the hype and pressure of the build-up making way for actual racing itself.
The 31-year-old is widely regarded as the top favourite here, certainly in the eyes of Italians, with 'Nibali versus everyone' the headline plastered on the front page of La Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday morning. You sense that such talk has not been entirely welcome, with Nibali delivering a string of cagey and non-committal responses in Wednesday's pre-race press conference.
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Patrick is a freelance sports writer and editor. He’s an NCTJ-accredited journalist with a bachelor’s degree in modern languages (French and Spanish). Patrick worked full-time at Cycling🅷news for eight years between 2015 and 2023, latterly as Deputy Editor.