Dumoulin wins opening stage of 2018 Giro d’Italia and takes time on Froome

CTT

Defending champion Tom Dumoulin won the opening stage of the 101st Giro d’Italia on Friday, edging Rohan Dennis (BMC) by two seconds to claim the pink jersey.

The Team Sunweb rider was the last of the 175 riders to start. He finished the 9.7-kilometer time trial in 12 minutes, 2 seconds.

Chris Froome (Team Sky) had to recover from a crash during the recon of the stage and was 19 seconds down on then leader Rohan Dennis (BMC) through the first intermediate checkpoint. The Briton finished 37 seconds down on Dumoulin and now sits in 21st place overall.

“I knew I felt good in the last days, but we still had to see in the race how it is. This is all I wished for – the win and a lot of time on the other GC riders, so it’s the perfect start for me,” Dumoulin said.

“The course was perfect for me – very technical, and I’m good on corners on the TT bike. It was full gas, recover, full gas, recover, so it was perfect for me.”

The second stage on Saturday will see the riders start in the northern port city of Haifa and ride 167-kilometres south along the coast to the finish in Tel Aviv.

Giro d’Italia 2018 – stage 1 results (Jerusalem ITT):

1	Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb)	12:02
2	Rohan Dennis (BMC)	+02”
3	Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal)	,,
4	José Gonçalves (Katusha-Alpecin)	+12”
5	Alex Dowsett (Katusha-Alpecin)	+16”
6	Pello Bilbao (Astana)	+18”
7	Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott)	+20”
8	Maximilian Schachmann (Quick-Step Floors)	+21”
9	Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin)	+27”
10	Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida)	,,
11	Carlos Betancur (Movistar)	+28”
12	Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates)	+29”
13	Mads Würtz Schmidt (Katusha-Alpecin)	+30”
14	Felix Grossschartner (Bora-hansgrohe)	+31”
15	Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal)	+32”
16	Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ)	+33”
17	Tom Scully (EF Education First-Drapac)	+34”
18	Patrick Konrad (Bora-hansgrohe)	,,
19	Georg Preidler (Groupama-FDJ)	,,
20	Rémi Cavagna (Quick-Step Floors)	+35”