Great Britain's Simon Yates produced an impressive ride to take second place in the opening time trial of the Giro d'Italia as Primoz Roglic claimed victory in Bologna.
Mitchelton-Scott rider Yates, winner of La Vuelta, has made the Giro his primary focus this season and exuded confidence in the final pre-race press conference.
Yates spent two weeks in the leader's pink jersey last year before his challenge faded in the mountains as Chris Froome went on a solo attack to secure a dramatic victory.
#Giro @SimonYatess finishes with the second fastest time, 19seconds down on Roglic. pic.twitter.com/H4rjerHlZd — Mitchelton-SCOTT (@MitcheltonSCOTT) May 11, 2019
The Lancastrian was one of the last riders down the ramp to tackle Saturday's 8.2 kilometre route, which had a sharp climb to the finish.
Yates, though, dug deep and looked set to challenge Roglic's mark of 12 minutes and 54 seconds but eventually crossed 19 seconds adrift of the Team Jumbo-Visma rider.
Slovenian Roglic, who went off 12th, was the only man to break 13 minutes, with home favourite Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) finishing third, some six seconds behind Yates.
Stage 1 – Podium | Tappa 1 – Podio🥇@rogla 🇸🇮 – @JumboVismaRoad 12:54🥈@SimonYatess 🇬🇧 – @MitcheltonSCOTT 13:13 +0:19🥉@vincenzonibali 🇮🇹 – @Bahrain_Merida 13:17 +0:23#Giro pic.twitter.com/pgKP7rPtMk — Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 11, 2019
Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) and Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) both shared fourth place with 13mins 22secs.
Britain's Tao Geoghegan Hart took seventh place for Team Ineos with 13:29.
Roglic admitted afterwards he was "super happy" to claim the first pink leader's jersey of the 2019 Giro, having had to wait the best part of three hours for all the other riders to finish.
🇮🇹 #Giro102 Pink jersey!😁 pic.twitter.com/sVFB7FJaR5 — Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) May 11, 2019
"It is a great start and I am looking forward to the next three weeks," the Slovenian said on Eurosport.
"We will see how it goes. For sure, the most important thing is to wear it (leader's jersey) in Verona at the end."
Sunday's second stage will be over some 205km down to Fucecchio, which features two categorised climbs ahead of a flat finish.
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