Filippo Ganna made his Team Sky debut as he claimed victory in the opening time trial at Tour de La Provence.
The Italian powered to victory in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, taking his first win on the road as a professional and with it a nine-second race lead.
A dominant time of 10 minutes and five seconds was enough to claim victory over Sebastian Langeveld (EF Education First), with Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) taking the third place.
“I’m really happy. I’ve been waiting two years for my first pro victory on the road. Now I’m with this amazing team and it’s a really important moment. The team has supported me from my first day with them and to now see myself at the top of the classification is a dream come true. Two months ago I would not have thought this was possible.
“I’ve stayed in good condition in the lead-up to the race, working with my coach Dario (Cioni), and I tried to push a bit more when I saw this opening stage. I hoped I had the level to do a good performance and I’m really happy I could take the victory. Now we need to defend this jersey in the coming days. We’ve got a strong team here to do this and we’ll try our best.”
Tour de la Provence 2019 – stage 1 results (Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer ITT):
| 1 | Filippo Ganna (Team Sky) | 10:05 |
| 2 | Sebastian Langeveld (EF Education First) | +09” |
| 3 | Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +10” |
| 4 | Jasha Sutterlin (Movistar) | +15” |
| 5 | Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +18” |
| 6 | Yves Lampaert (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +19” |
| 7 | Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ) | +20” |
| 8 | Owain Doull (Team Sky) | +21” |
| 9 | Sep Vanmarcke (EF Education First) | +24” |
| 10 | Yoann Paillot (St Michel-Auber 93) | +25” |
