Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) has retained the pink leader’s jersey after the second time trial of the Giro d’Italia from Trento to Rovereto. The Briton finished in 22nd position, one minute 37 seconds behind stage winner Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) and one minute 15 seconds behind closest general classification threat Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb).
It was the first Giro d’Italia stage win for Australian national time trial champion Dennis who stopped the clock in 40’00” flat to take the win by an impressive margin of 14 seconds over Tony Martin (Team Katusha – Alpecin) with Dumoulin in third a further 8″ down.
Yates now leads Dumoulin by 56″ with Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) in third at 3’11”. Chris Froome (Team Sky) moved up to fourth overall following his fifth place in the time-trial.
“I am really happy, I felt good in the first 20-25 kilometres,” said Yates afterwards. “I had a good rhythm and felt like I was going well. I wasn’t losing so much time and I was really trying to hold my position, but in the final ten kilometres I really died a thousand deaths.”
“I thought I would lose a lot more, but I managed to hang on and I am really happy with that. I think after today it will change our tactics for the coming stages and I think, unfortunately for the fans we will have to be a lot more defensive.
“We’ll see how it plays out, there’s quite a big gap to some of the guys behind me now, Tom (Dumoulin) is only 56seconds, but to the others it’s a good gap. There’s still a long way to go to Rome. I hope I don’t have any bad luck or bad days and I’ll see what I can do.”
