Giro d'Italia: Tom Dumoulin wins stage 1, Chris Froome out of the top 20

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Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) made the perfect start to his Giro d’Italia defence, winning the stage 1 time trial in Jerusalem on Friday to put himself in the pink jersey and gain significant time on his general classification rivals.

The Dutchman clocked 12:02 on the rolling 9.7-kilometre course, beating Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) by two seconds. Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal) finished third on the stage, losing out to Dennis by a few hundredths of a second.

After his breakthrough Giro victory last year, the 2018 edition of the Corsa Rosa was billed as the first showdown between Dumoulin and four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome (Team Sky), and in the first exchange went the way of Dumoulin in emphatic style.

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Froome crashed heavily while performing a recon of the course in the morning, and went on to set a disappointing time of 12:39, putting Dumoulin 37 seconds ahead after just one stage.

"I knew I felt good in the last days, but we still had to see in the race how it is. This is all I wished for - the win and a lot of time on the other GC riders, so it's the perfect start for me," Dumoulin said.

"The course was perfect for me - very technical, and I'm good on corners on the TT bike. It was full gas, recover, full gas, recover, so it was perfect for me."

Froome was the only pink jersey contender considered capable of living with Dumoulin in the time trials - with a 34km test to come in the third week - but in the end he found himself down even on the lightweight climbing specialists.

Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) showed his Paris-Nice time trial last month wasn't a one-off, clocking 12:22 to finish seventh on the stage. More surprising, still, was Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) whose time of 12:29 equalled that of four-time time trial world champion Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin).

Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) put in a solid enough ride - though some way short of what he's capable of - to be the next best of the GC riders, 33 seconds behind Dumoulin and six seconds ahead of Froome. Behind Froome there was Davide Formolo (Bora-Hansgrohe) on 12:42, Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) on 12:48, George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo) on 12:51, and Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) on 12:52, the Italian with a predictably weak showing that will force him to come good on his promise to go all-out attack in the final week.

Another podium contender to lose a chunk of time to Dumoulin was Miguel Angel Lopez. Like Froome, the Astana rider crashed in the recon and lost nearly a minute to Dumoulin - 12:58 was his time - though the Colombian climber was never expected to rival the time trial world champion here.

The hopes of Louis Meintjes (Dimension Data) and Michael Woods (EF-Drapac) took early blows as they finished on 13:10 and 13:04, respectively.

Dumoulin now leads the general classification by two seconds over Dennis and Campenaerts. The absence of sprinters in the upper echelons of the stage standings - bonus seconds are available on the following two flat stages - means Dumoulin should hold the maglia rosa all the way to Italy on Tuesday.

"We’re not planning on defending it every day - the Giro is still very long," said Dumoulin, cautiously. "It's nice to have it today but it's hard to keep it for the whole three weeks, so we'll see what we do about that."

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How it unfolded

The drama had begun before the first rider had even begun warming up, as several riders hit the deck while performing a recon of the 9.7km Jerusalem course, which had been kept open to the heavy city centre traffic during the week. Froome and Lopez both suffered cuts and abrasions but took to the start, though the situation was more serious for Kanstantsin Siutsou (Bahrain-Merida), who fractured a vertebra and had to withdraw from the race.

Fabio Sabatini (Quick-Step Floors) was the first rider off the ramp at 13:50 local time, and while the Italian was first into the 'hotseat' of provisional leader, he was never going to stay there long. His teammate Remi Cavagna was the first real time trial specialist down the ramp and duly set the fastest time, but Dennis was also off in the first hour and would raise - or lower - the bar by 33 seconds.

Pello Bilbao (Astana) and Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates) posted strong times, but the first worry for Dennis was Jose Goncalves (Katusha-Alpecin). The Portuguese rider was a shade faster at the intermediate checkpoint but faded in the latter part of the course, slipping to 10 seconds down.

Later in the afternoon some of the general classification contenders began to hit the start ramp. Pinot clocked 12:35, which was seventh fastest at the time, while Simon Yates and Pozzovivo, two traditionally weaker time triallists, produced impressive rides to enter the top 10.

As Fabio Aru and Froome set out on the course, pure time trial specialist Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Fix All), the European champion no less, produced a powerful ride and got everything out of his legs as he fought with the bike all the way to the line. He stopped the clock on 12:04, the same time as Dennis, but cruelly the hundredths of a second went against him. Meanwhile another specialist Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin) could only manage another disappointing ride by his high standards.

The writing was on the wall for Froome at the intermediate checkpoint kilometre-5.1, the Tour de France and Vuelta a España champion finding himself 19 seconds down on Max Schachmann’s (Quick-Step) leading time, and 15 seconds down on Dennis. It wasn’t long before Dumoulin himself was there and the contrast couldn't have been more evident as the Dutchman - expressionless and flew through in 6:17, the fastest of the lot and four seconds up on Dennis.

Dennis had produced a steady opening half of his ride before finishing strong, so there was still hope, but Dumoulin would not fade. He did slip by a couple of seconds but held on to take back that pink jersey that he wore on the final day of last year’s race.

With doubts surrounding the 27-year-old’s shape - both physically and psychologically - ahead of his first Grand Tour as a former Grand Tour champion, he could hardly have hoped for a better start. For Froome, meanwhile, it could hardly have been much worse.

The 2018 Giro is only 9.7km old, but significant fault lines have already opened.

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