Van Garderen takes precious seconds on his Tirreno-Adriatico rivals with TTT victory

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Tejay van Garderen, Daniel Oss and their BMC teammates and staff all swapped hugs and celebrated together in the podium area of Tirreno-Adriatico after it was confirmed they had won the opening team time trial stage.

The American team has emerged as the dominant force in the team time trial in recent years, winning the world title in 2014 and 2015 and the team time trial stage at the 2015 Tour de France. After detailed preparation by time trial coach Marco Pinotti, the BMC riders put in a near perfect ride, with Daniel Oss, Tejay van Garderen, Taylor Phinney, Greg Van Avermaet, and Manuel Quinziato all finishing together. Damiano Caruso, Alessandro De Marchi and Jean Pierre Drucker finished a little off the pace after sitting up following their contribution to the effort earlier in the 22km.

Oss crossed the line first and so pulled on the race leader's blue jersey. It was a moment of payback for the Italian's hard work as a core domestique in the team. Van Garderen finished in the same time, and so BMC's victory allowed him to gain some significant time on his overall rivals.

Thibaut Pinot surprisingly lost the least amount of time – nine seconds, after his FDJ team finished third behind BMC and Etixx-QuickStep. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) lost 15 seconds to van Garderen, Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) lost 17 seconds, Michal Kwiatkowski and Wout Poels (Team Sky) lost 21 seconds, Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) lost 25 seconds and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) lost 29 seconds. Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) lost an even more significant 59 seconds, while Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale) lost 2:03 and any chance of overall success after he and three teammates touched wheels and crashed at speed on a straight section of road.