Saturday 07 May 2011 at 17h59
This afternoon, the Giro d'Italia 2011 started with a team time trial in Turin. 19.3 kilometers long, some turns and small roads made the race route difficult. HTC-Highroad turned out to be the winning team with an average speed of 55.142 km/h.
Marco Pinotti is the first rider to wear the pink jersey of the general classification leader.
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The summary of the first stage of the Giro d'Italia 2011: Venaria Reale > Torino
After having done a final training ride on the parcours of this team time trial, the riders had to hurry up to get back to the start since they only had 20 minutes left before the first start. Apparently the organizer of the Giro d'Italia still has some things to learn because the riders were not happy already yesterday night after the team presentation and they most probably didn't appreciate this start of the Tour of Italy 2011 either!Several teams had a better time at the intermediate timing point (for example Rabobank which had a 1 second gap on Omega Pharma-Lotto there and who finally lost 4 at the finish) but apparently the Belgian team did a very good second part of the time trial because we had to wait for Team HTC-Highroad to see a better time, with 22 seconds off.
Marco Pinotti, the only Italian rider in the team, had the honor to cross the finish line first, in honour of the 150th anniversary of the reunification of Italy which will be celebrated with this Giro d'Italia.
The Team Garmin-Cervélo had a disappointing time of 21'23", one second behind Omega Pharma-Lotto.
Team Liquigas-Cannondale finished with the same time as Omega Pharma-Lotto and when they crossed the finish line, the Italian team was said to be behind Omega Pharma-Lotto. In the final classification, the team was actually placed above the Belgian team.
Finally, only Team Radioshack was able to improve the second time, by ending this race in 21'09" while the team of the big favourite Alberto Contador, Saxo Bank-Sungard, ended in 21'29", 30 seconds behind the winner.
The reaction of Marco Pinotti (HTC-Highroad)
After having put on the pink jersey, Marco Pinotti commented It's a huge honor to be wearing the maglia rosa, but this is a victory that belongs to the whole team. I can't thank them enough.We made a very strong start, and the best riders took the longest turns on the front. We made sure we kept a steady pace throughout and that's always important.
It was flat all the way but it wasn't an easy course, you had to be careful with the tram lines and on the corners, some of them were very difficult.
But we'd ridden over the race route this morning and we'd prepared everything right down to the last detail.
Looking at the result, we couldn't have done better. It's a great day for the team.
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The classification of the first stage of the Giro d'Italia 2011
The full classification of the team time trial of the Tour of Italy 2011 is as follows:1/ Team HTC-Highroad - 20'59"
2/ Team Radioshack - +0'10"
3/ Liquigas-Cannondale - +0'22"
4/ Omega Pharma-Lotto
5/ Team Garmin-Cervélo - +0'24"
6/ Lampre-ISD
7/ Rabobank - +0'26"
8/ Saxo Bank-Sungard - +0'30"
9/ Team Sky - +0'37"
10/ Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
11/ Movistar Team - +0'38"
12/ Androni Giocattoli - +0'39"
13/ BMC Racing Team - +0'41"
14/ Team Leopard-Trek - +0'42"
15/ Quick Step
16/ AG2R La Mondiale - +0'49"
17/ Astana - +0'50"
18/ Geox-TMC - +0'53"
19/ Colnago-CSF Inox - +1'02"
20/ Katusha Team - +1'04"
21/ Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli - +1'07"
22/ Acqua & Sapone
23/ Euskaltel-Euskadi - +1'13" door Thomas Vergouwen
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