Stage 1

The road

At the start

A flat 9.8km, and Cancellara is ill

Apeldoorn, a Friday afternoon, and the Giro begins in the Netherlands with nine and a half kilometres of straight road, regular corners and one railway underpass — a pure test of power. Fabian Cancellara was the favourite until stomach flu took hold, which leaves Tom Dumoulin, beaten into second in three time trials already this spring, riding for the stage and the first maglia rosa in front of his own crowd.

How it was won

1. 16 km to go

   Brändle sets the marker

   Mathias Brändle is first to post a real time around the streets of Apeldoorn, 11:17, and settles into the hot seat for a quarter of an hour before Ludvigsson knocks him off it by six seconds.

2. 25 km to go

   Too fast, too early

   Tim Wellens flies through the intermediate check quicker than anyone — and pays for it, bleeding twenty seconds over the second half. Roglič goes through a second slower and holds his effort together.

3. 3At the line

   Dumoulin by a hundredth

   In front of a home crowd Tom Dumoulin takes the first maglia rosa of the Giro by one hundredth of a second from Primož Roglič, with Andrey Amador third.

The result