Filippo Ganna wins the first stage of Tirreno-Adriatico 2023

The forecasts were fulfilled at the start of Tirreno-Adriatico, with an unbeatable Filippo Ganna who gave no option to his rivals in the time trial that started the race. Limited differences between the favorites who took the minimum risks in the rainy and windy day they had to deal with.

Filippo Ganna defeats the wind, the rain... and his rivals

The Tirreno-Adriatico 2023 began with a time trial of just over 11 kilometers that would serve to establish the first differences in the overall with the inconvenience of a very hard day due to the wind, rain and even hail, which largely marked the outcome of the race, hurting mainly those who started in the early stages and gave truce to the last ones to take the start.

Frenchman Bruno Armirail set the best time of this first stage of Tirreno-Adriatico for many minutes, with a time of 13'25'' that was not even surpassed by Wout Van Aaert, who started the competition unusually early and, seeing the weather, decided not to take any risks, as he declared after crossing the finish line 17 seconds behind the Frenchman.

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Also clearly affected by the weather was Thomas Pidcock, who was 12'' behind Van Aert. The first words of his teammate Michal Kwiatkwoski, who came close to taking the first place from Armirail, were a good sign of the hardness of the day. He could only manage to say: "I've hardly ever ridden a time trial in such tough conditions".

A few minutes later, a hail storm would rage and after it, the rain began to stop and the wind began to die down. Magnus Sheffield, American rider of INEOS Grenadiers, took advantage of the occasion to set a time that was no less than 26'' less than the Frenchman's mark. A time that allowed him to dream of the stage victory, especially when riders were arriving and no one was approaching his time.

Among them, the main favorites, with Jai Hindley losing 20 seconds, Adam Yates 25 or Roglic 18. Good role of Enric Mas who, without being a specialist by far, lost just 11 seconds to Primoz Roglic. The other Spaniard called to be the protagonist of this Tirreno-Adriatico 2023, Mikel Landa, in his line in this discipline, lost 26 seconds compared to the Slovenian's time.

The minutes of monotony waiting for the start of the great favorite to win the stage were broken by the arrival of German Bora-Hansgrohe rider Lennard Kamna, who managed to take the first place from Sheffield, cutting 3 seconds off his time.

However, no amount of time was enough to stop the INEOS Grenadiers giant. From the first meters he set a relentless pace, with the added bonus of better weather conditions. Already at the 10th intermission was the improvement set by the Italian, sweeping Kamna's time by 28 seconds at a stratospheric 55.3 km/h average.

All options open in the general classification for the stages to come and, most importantly of all, no casualties in the form of crashes.

Stage 1 Classification

1. Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers) 12’28’’
2. Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe) +28’’
3. Magnus Sheffield (INEOS Grenadiers) +31’’
4. Michael Hepburn (Jayco-alUla) +33’’
5. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) +34’’
6. Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers) +39’’
7. Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +41’’
8. Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) +41
9. Casper Pedersen (Soudal-QuickStep) +47’’
10. Wilco Kelderman (Jumbo-Visma) +48’’