Bora-Argon 18 win opening team time trial at Giro del Trentino

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Bora-Argon 18 sprang something of a surprise in the opening team time trial of the Giro del Trentino when they beat Team Sky by just 0.11 seconds to take the honours and place Italian rider Cesare Benedetti in the leader’s jersey.

The German-registered squad scorched around the fast, 13.3-kilometre course on the shore of Lake Garda at an average speed of some 56.643kph, but despite that impressive showing, the expectation was that the Sky team of pre-race favourite Richie Porte would have enough quality in their ranks to land the win.

Sky reached the midway point four seconds down on Bora-Argon 18, however, and although they made up most of the deficit on the back end of the course, Porte, Leopold Konig, Kanstantin Siutsou et al fell just short of winning the stage.

Despite beginning with just seven riders due to the withdrawal of Fabio Aru through illness, Astana produced a very solid display on the road to Arco di Trento. Led by Dario Cataldo and Tanel Kangert, the Kazakhstani squad were the early pace-setters and they finished the day in third place, just four seconds down on Bora-Argon 18 and Sky.

Ag2r-La Mondiale lined up with one of the strongest teams on paper, with Jean-Christophe Péraud, Domenico Pozzovivo and Romain Bardet all on hand, and the French outfit performed more or less to expectations, taking fourth place on the stage, albeit 12 seconds behind Bora.

There was a further team time trial mishap for Cannondale-Garmin, however, as they suffered a crash midway through their effort, with Ted King and Davide Villella falling, though both men were able to remount and complete the course.

The American squad has some previous in this department – crashes marred their team time trials at last year’s Giro d’Italia and at the Vuelta a España in 2012 and 2013 – but Ryder Hesjdeal and company recovered sufficiently here to finish the day in 8th place, 24 seconds off the pace.

The day belonged to Bora-Argon 18, however, and in particular to Cesare Benedetti. The Trentino native has spent his entire professional career racing for a German team and he was pleased to enjoy success on home roads.

"We wanted to do well here because we were second behind BMC last year and this morning at breakfast we were joking that we only needed to improve by one position," Benedetti said, adding that it hadn’t been preordained that he would cross the line first for Bora-Argon 18.

"Last year I got blocked in at the barriers, but this time I didn’t let the chance get away from me and I led a long way in the finishing straight. Realistically it will be hard to defend this jersey on the climbs but I’m already very pleased that we’ve beaten specialists like Sky in this team time trial."

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