BMC strike first blow at Tirreno-Adriatico

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BMC Racing stormed their way to victory in the team time trial on the opening day of action at Tirreno-Adriatico. The American team almost came to the line with a full complement of riders, losing just one rider in the closing kilometres, and posted a time of 23:20 on the 22.7km route around the Tuscany seaside resort of Lido di Camaiore.

As the team entered the final stretch, they had a minute to work with but the drag was long and they held 17 seconds on Quick-Step Floors by the time they hit the line. Italian Damiano Caruso sprinted to the front of the group to lead them over and put himself into the first blue jersey. As the team's GC hopes collapsed at Paris-Nice this week, the victory sets up the general classification campaign of Tejay van Garderen nicely.

Nairo Quintana will also be satisfied with how his Movistar team performed. In Tuesday's pre-race press conference, Quintana had said the stage would be about limiting losses and they did that and more, clocking the third quickest time at just 22 seconds behind BMC.

Orica-Scott was the only other team to dip below the 24-minute mark with their effort of 22:45, putting Adam Yates into a strong position ahead of the mountains.

"Most of us are time trial specialists. We won like last year but faster than last year because we have two new riders in the team, Stefan Kung and Rohan Dennis who are really fast against the clock. They have made that difference today compared to last year," Caruso said before collecting his leader's jersey. "Maybe the weather conditions have also helped for a faster time. At the end I was first on the line, which enables me to wear the leader's jersey – it's a great honour. Racing at home in Italy with that jersey will be special. We'll see how far I can go with it. We're also racing for our leader Tejay van Garderen."

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How it happened

Lotto Soudal kick-started the 2017 Tirreno-Adriatico, under sunny skies in Lido di Camaiore. They didn't have high expectations going into the stage but put in a solid performance of 24:12, which would be enough to hold off the attempts of Trek-Segafredo and Tom Dumoulin's Team Sunweb. The Dutchman's blunt appraisal of the time, which was four seconds slower than Lotto Soudal, was that it was simply 'not fast enough'. Dumoulin would have been hoping to put time into his rivals on day one, rather than giving it away.

Movistar, who were sixth to start, would eventually knock Lotto Soudal out of the hot seat. While taking care to keep Quintana out of the wind as much as possible, they averaged over 57kph on the course. The team's time of 23:42 would give the Colombian a large buffer on some of his GC rivals going into the next stages and was a marked improvement on their 10th place ride over the same course last year.

Reigning team time trial world champions Quick-Step Floors were also in the first half of the teams, starting eighth of the 22 squads. With half the team that delivered them to that title in the eight-man line-up, plus the firepower of the likes of Zdenek Stybar and Tom Boonen, the Belgian outfit set off with just one result in mind.

Quick-Step Floors would cut five seconds off Movistar's time and replace them in the hot seat. The team had to wait well over an hour to see any other team could get close to them, as plenty tried and failed. Both FDJ and Orica-Scott put in strong performances, but they weren't sufficient to threaten their hold on the lead.

Team Sky had big hopes of what they might be able to do but several of their riders, including Mikel Landa and Diego Rosa, looked in trouble, and the team had to adjust to ensure they weren't dropped. A catastrophic wheel failure for Gianni Moscon, which sent him tumbling to the ground, was the final nail in the coffin. Fortunately for Moscon, he was able to remount, and he reported to the television cameras waiting at the finish that it was a pothole that had caused the failure.

As the winners of last year's time trial, BMC was the last team to depart down the starting ramp. They looked like a well-oiled machine throughout, losing just Manuel Quinziato in the final kilometres. With the line in sight, Caruso sprinted while the remainder of the team remained in formation on the other side of the road. The Italian led them over to put himself into the first leader's jersey of the race.

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