Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) won the time trial which opened the Giro d’Italia in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, and became the first to wear the pink jersey of the race leader, while his teammate Tobias Ludvigsson finished fourth to become best young rider.
The Dutch national time trial champion covered the 9.8 m city course in 11:03, taking the win by .022 of a second, in the first time he has ridden the Giro.
The team received a royal visit before the start, as King Willem Alexander came by the team bus to wish them luck, and he was also one of the first to congratulate the 25-year-old after the stage.
His win means that now Giant-Alpecin has worn the leader’s jersey in all three Grand Tours — the Tour de France in 2014 and the Vuelta a Espana last year, with Dumoulin in red for six stages.
Dumoulin, who is also Dutch national time trial champion, set out to great cheers from his home fans, and set the best time at the intermediate time check on his way to victory. He powered his way to the finish line in the same time to a tenth of a second as Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo), forcing the decision to be based on the hundredths of a second.
He was not the only star for the German team. Tobias Ludvigsson put in a best time of 11:11, and sat on the hot seat for much of the day, until he was displaced by Roglic. The Swede finished the day in fourth, only eight seconds back, and his time was good enough to give him the white jersey as best young rider.
Chad Haga and Georg Preidler rounded out the team’s performance, finishing 12th and 13th, 16 and 17 seconds down, contributing to winning the best team ranking.
Tom Dumoulin couldn’t stop smiling. “This is incredible, even better than I ever dreamed. To win by such a small gap before this incredible home crowd is a very special feeling. This is a huge success not only for me but also for the whole team.”
Coach Marc Reef said “It is unbelievable, really nice. And good that we finally got our first victory!”
Dumoulin’s performance reflected that of the whole team. “We have four guys in the top 15, and we can see that they are really on a good level and they can push power for a long time and keep the speed high. It is impressive what we showed here today.
Team CEO Iwan Spekenbrink saw beyond the mere fact of winning a stage. “This is a true milestone, a great victory for Tom Dumoulin, who is maturing as an athlete. Step by step he is turning pressure into motivation, which is a good development. He did a very solid race.”
“But we also have Tobias in the best young rider jersey in the fourth spot. I think we also won the team classification, so today is a successful day.”
He looked back as to how far the team has come since the dark days this winter. “We all know where we come from in January, what a huge setback we had. We said, ok we cannot change it, we have to accept it ,we have to stay calm and keep on working. We said that when we get back we will be a little bit better and I think this is the confirmation of that.”.
