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Team dsm-firmenich put in a mistake-free ride to win the opening team time trial at the Vuelta a España, in treacherous conditions. The second team to start, they finished the 14.8km course in a time of 17:30 to win ahead of Movistar and EF Education-EasyPost. The victory put Lorenzo Milesi in the first leader’s jersey of this year’s race after he crossed the line ahead of his teammates.
In contention for the stage win, Movistar were flying on home roads in pitch black and set the same time as dsm-firmenich at the checkpoint. The five riders left in the Spanish team were not able to stick together at the line and ultimately finished less than one second back.
With the stage length measuring in at 9km shorter than the 23km TTT from stage 1 last year, time gaps were expected to be smaller but the difficult wet and dark conditions on the technical course with 22 corners caused havoc for many teams
Starting mid-way, Bahrain-Victorious finished in seventh, 10 seconds down while the teams started later had to also face pitch black gloom in addition to wet roads. Defending champion Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal-QuickStep finished fourth, tied in time with EF Education-EasyPost, at six seconds down. Ineos Grenadiers and Jumbo-Visma placed eighth and 11th at 20 and 32 seconds respectively in arrears.
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