With all 23 teams finishing within 1’13” of each other in today’s opening team time trial, it’s tough to make definite observations on good or bad performances. Nobody split into pieces in the final kilometre, losing the race lead, as Astana did last year. There were a number of surprises on the day though and some teams stood out above the others, which may, or may not be indicative of the rest of the Giro to come.
Who’s hot?
HTC-Highroad: No big surprises that the American-registered team won the stage, but the manner in which it was done deserves considerable praise. Despite primarily racing for sprinter Mark Cavendish, the team chose to give Italian time trial champion Marco Pinotti the honour of crossing the line first; thus allowing the team’s one home rider to take the first maglia rosa of the race in the 150th anniversary of his country’s birth.
Cavendish needn’t wait too long for his turn to take pink though, the Manx Missile should finish in the top places of tomorrow’s flat stage, even if he doesn’t win it, and will likely take the jersey from his teammate's shoulders; either by time bonuses or simply by his placing on the stage.
RadioShack: Again, after the American team’s performances against the clock this season, as well as its heritage in team time trials going all the way back to the mighty US Postal team, it’s no surprise that it did so well here. While the team may be a little disappointed at missing out on the stage win, the result puts many of its riders in good positions in many of the competitions.
Tiago Machado may not be in the first division of overall favourites, but he’s put his nose ahead of the rest at this early stage. Sprinters Robbie McEwen are now both within striking distance of the maglia rosa; if Cavendish has a bad day and either of them wins, they should take it from the HTC-Highroad team.
In addition, because HTC-Columbia dropped Patrick Gretsch on the way to the finish line, Bjorn Selander has taken an early lead in the young riders white jersey competition.
Liquigas-Cannondale: Nobody really expected the Italian team to repeat its win of twelve months ago; it arguably enjoyed the best of the conditions in a race of half the distance again, after the race had already been going a few days. What the team’s performance does do though, is put Vincenzo Nibali in pole position as the race begins; putting him a morale-boosting eight seconds ahead of chief rival Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard).
As the team’s major target for the year, Liquigas-Cannondale would doubtless have loved to taken the race’s first pink jersey; in truth though, its probably glad not to have the pressure, or attention, this early on.
OmegaPharma-Lotto: Where did that performance come from? Although the team is full of powerful rouleurs, it has no history whatsoever in team time trials and finishing this well is a big surprise.
Starting first, the Belgian team’s time of 21’21” was not beaten until HTC-Highroad’s winning time, and only RadioShack and Liquigas-Cannondale managed to go better. While the team must have been pleased with its performance, it can’t have expected to stay at the top of the leaderboard for so long, and was probably a little disappointed by the time it was pushed off.
Lampre-ISD: Another surprisingly good performance came from the blue and fuchsia team, which ended up in sixth place. Put together with the dual objective of winning the race for Michele Scarponi and sprints for Alessandro Petacchi, the team is not packed with time triallists.
We may have just been given an exhibition from the Lampre-ISD team’s lead out train.
Who’s not?
Garmin-Cervélo: Fifth place on the stage would be a satisfying position for most teams but, for one that makes this sort of event its speciality, this was not a great result for Garmin-Cervélo. In the past the Garmin team has finished first and second in the race’s opening team time trials, in 2008 and 2009, and would surely have expected to do similarly today.
As the team often does, it shelled it’s weaker time triallists in the early stages – Tom Peterson ended up losing 4’20” on the day – with the stronger riders hoping their power will take them through. Finishing with just five riders though, meant that they were unable to compete with those who still have virtually their entire teams left.
Worst of all, as they trailed HTC-highroad by 24 seconds, Tyler Farrar is out of range of taking the pink jersey this week.
Geox-TMC: The team that was Footon-Servetto was hardly expected to set the race alight, but 2009 race winner Denis Menchov will doubtlessly be a little disappointed to lose so much time. The Russian is one of the strongest overall contenders against the clock, but his team did not match up to his strength.
It’s not the end of the World for Menchov and Carlos Sastre though, as both will be able to rely on their own, and each others, individual strengths in the stages to come.
Katusha: Again, this team was not expected to do particularly well here, although it fared far better in last year’s equivalent stage. The loss of so much time over his rivals at this early stage, puts Joaquim Rodriguez on the back foot before the race has really begun.