Tirreno-Adriatico: Malori wins opening individual time trial

Adriano Malori (Movistar) won the opening stage of Tirreno-Adriatico on a shortened 5.4km individual time trial in Lido di Camaiore, Italy on Wednesday. The Italian finished the course in 6:04 minutes beating Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) by just one second and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) by two seconds.

"I'm thrilled,” Malori said in a team statement. “Really it was a victory that I expected. Despite what it might have seemed, it was a fairly technical course, where I could have missed some explosiveness in the corners. Even so, my feelings have been very good, and to beat a rider like Cancellara, that, in this type of route, is almost insurmountable and was fantastic.”

Malori's win means that he kicks off the Italian WorldTour race in the overall leader’s jersey as the race heads into the second stage on Thursday, a 153km race from Camaiore to Cascina.

“Wearing the blue jersey in such a beautiful and important race as this makes me very happy,” he said. “It would be nice to keep it as long as possible, but we have a rider like Nairo [Quintana] with options to fight for the final general classification.”

Race organizers were forced to change stage 1’s original 22.7km team time trial course to a 5.7km individual time trial because of the bad weather that damaged some of the roads in the area. On the morning of the event, however, organizer again shortened the course by 300 metres, to a total of 5.4km. The course had an out-and-back design where riders benefitted from a tailwind on the way out but faced a headwind on the way back.

Cannondale-Garmin’s Davide Villella was the first rider to set off on the shortened course in Lido di Camaiore but it was his compatriot Daniel Oss from the BMC team that set early benchmark with a time of 16:08.

Michael Hepburn was the fastest man of the day for Orica-GreenEdge after he finished 19th place with a time of 6:14. In an interview with Cyclingnews the previous day, team director Matt White expressed his disappointment in the organizers decision to change the stage from a team time trial to an individual time trial, given that squad brought a series of team time triallists to the race with the intent of winning the first stage.

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The hot seat shifted into the hands of IAM Cycling when Matthias Brändle broke Oss’ leading time with a 6:06. That time didn’t hold long, however, as Malori stormed to the line two seconds faster at 6:04 minutes, which ended up being the winning time of the day.

Uran sets the early mark for the GC favourites

The last riders of the race took to the starting ramp and within a few minutes attention turned to the favourites for the overall as they, one-by-one, race toward the finish line. Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was the first of the favorites to finish his time trial in 6:15, enough to slot himself into 21th place.

But it was Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-QuickStep) who came in next, one second faster than the Italian, at 6:14 minutes and 19th place. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) lost some time to his rivals when he rode the course 11 seconds slower than the Colombian with a time of 6:25 for 81st place.

In the meantime, Cancellara’s time of 6:05, was a second shy of cracking Malori’s fastest time of the day and he ended up in second place. Similarly, Van Avermaet rode the course in 6:06, which was good enough for third place on the podium.

All eyes were on the last rider of the day, defending champion Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), who is the favourite to win the title at Tirreno-Adriatico again, especially in the absence of rival Chris Froome (Team Sky). He finished with a time of 6:23, nine seconds behind Uran, in 67th place.

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