Stage 1

The road

At the start

The Giro starts in Denmark

The ninety-fifth Giro d'Italia begins a very long way from Italy, on flat, cold, windswept roads outside Herning. Eight and a half kilometres against the clock is not long enough to win anything and quite long enough to lose something: the specialists will fight over the first maglia rosa, and every man with designs on Milan will try to come through it upright and close.

How it was won

1. 15 km to go

   A physiology lab in the wind

   Eight and a half kilometres of flat, cold, windy suburban Herning: not a race of truth so much as a brief test carried out in public. Every man with an eye on Milan can do nothing today but keep the losses small and stay upright.

2. 2At the line

   Phinney, 21, in pink

   Taylor Phinney blows the field apart in 10:26, nine seconds clear of Geraint Thomas and thirteen up on Alex Rasmussen. He is twenty-one years old and he has just taken the first Grand Tour lead of his life.

The result