Giro d’Italia 2019: Stage 1 – Primoz Roglic with a comfortable win

It was an 8.2km opening ITT in the beautiful city of Bologna for Giro 2019. Not a lot of surprises – Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) wins comfortably, with Simon Yates (Mitchelton Scott) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) as second and third respectively. I suspect the only surprise was how skinny Tom Dumoulin was! And that he only came fifth. But no matter what, the Giro has started and for us, that’s worth celebrating.

Rider of the Race

The danger of having Primoz Roglic in the maglia rosa and one of the favourites for the overall GC win is that fans on Twitter could easily be drunk from now until the final in Verona on the 2nd of June. Even today, if you were taking a drink every time a commentator mentioned Roglic’s previous sport, you’re probably seeing double, even triple, by now. It’s going to be a bummer of a hangover if we keep this up. However, the deets are these: Roglic took the starting ITT by 19sec and was in the hot seat for hours. He’ll be in the maglia rosa tomorrow and, as a lot of this coming week’s stages are flat, he might be in it by next Saturday.

Meanwhile, in the studio

Anyone who has been at the Rouleur show the past few Novembers in London will know just how wonderful Orla Chennaoui is. She asks insightful questions (and follows up!), she loves cycling – she understands cycling! – and she even makes Wiggins palatable. I just want to be her best friend.

Although I still miss Ashley House and Juan Antonio Flecha‘s double act – oh, those wonderful memories of JAF’s post-stage interviews with riders who looked so happy to talk to him – I will not miss Jonathan Edwards, who sadly never seemed to know anything about cycling other than what the Team Sky press release said.