Giro d'Italia 2020 - Filippo Ganna takes Maglia Rosa for Ineos as Geraint Thomas makes strong start

World time trial champion Filippo Ganna lived up to his billing as the odds-on stage favourite to win the ITT on day one of the Giro d'Italia.

Time trial specialist Ganna smashed the 15km course, finishing 22 seconds ahead of his closest rival Joao Almeida (Deceuninck–Quick-Step), to take the maglia rosa, the pink leader's jersey.

The 24-year-old Italian reached speeds just shy of 106kmph on an extremely fast course that featured long straights and predominately downhill gradients. His average speed was 58.8km/h.

Ganna's Ineos teammate Geraint Thomas also enjoyed an excellent day on the streets of Palermo, taking time out of all of his expected general classification rivals on the first of three time trials in the three-week Grand Tour.

Simon Yates finished 26 seconds back on Thomas, a ride that both Yates and his director Matt White said they were happy with.

"I did what I can, it's not a course that's good for me," Yates said after finishing his ride.

And White said: "For us to only lose that time to Geraint Thomas is a very good start, regardless of where the other GC riders are."

Joao Almeida placed second on the stage, 22 seconds behind Ganna. He is a dark horse for the general classification this year after originally being signed as part of the support team built around Remco Evenepoel, due to lead Deceuninck–Quick-Step until his crash at Il Lombardia ruled him out. It will be interesting to see how Almeida fares on the first mountaintop finish of the race at Mount Etna on Monday.

World hour record holder, Victor Campenaerts (NTT Pro Cycling) crashed in the early part of the course as one of the first riders to roll off the start ramp. He was scathing about both the course design and maintenance in an interview afterwards.

He was not the only rider to under perform, either. Former world TT champ, Rohan Dennis, complained about the course and the extreme winds that riders experienced.

The most sever crash however, happened near to the second intermediate timing point, with Miguel Angel Lopez appearing to hit a bump in the road and lose control of his bike. He crashed into roadside barriers and was taken to hospital in an ambulance. At time of writing this was the latest information from his team.

Many of the race's likely GC contenders also fared poorly on the course, with Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) losing 1'05" to Thomas, Vincenzo Nibali losing 1'06" to the Welshman, and Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo Visma) giving up 1'21". Jakob Fuglsang finished 1'24" down on Thomas too.

These latter two riders are particularly noteworthy because they were much slower than other members of their team, who might also be able to contend for the win. Tobias Foss, winner of last year's Tour de L'Avenir, the race won by both Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogacar in the years before they won their Tours de France, is a red-hot talent and he managed to take fifth place overall on the stage, bettering Kruijswijk's time by more than a minute. Alexandr Vlasov also beat his leader, Fuglsang, by about 25 seconds.

The question facing the leadership of both teams now is do they persist with the big names, or switch allegiances to put all their resources behind their younger, less feted riders in the hope of pulling of a Pogacian upset.

The course began with a short 1.1 kilometre classified climb, with some riders actively targeting this – and the Giro's first blue jersey as leader of the climbing classification – rather than an overall stage win. Peter Sagan (Bora Hansgrohe) held the lead for some time before his time was bested by Rick Zabel (Israel StartUp Nation). The German's time was not to be bested, and he secured the maglia azzurra ahead of tomorrow's stage 2.