The Giro is underway and there's
about 50 minutes' summary to view from the initial TTT (skip to about 11 mins in for it to start).
Now, my opinions of the TTT are well known, but we can't really argue with the spectacle provided in terms of the battle for the stage win, since just a single, solitary second split Team Sunweb and Mitchelton-Scott, who went for polar opposite techniques; Sunweb kept their entire team together throughout to make the most of their numbers and shorter bursts, while Mitchelton-Scott came to the finishing line with the minimum number of riders, burning off their weaker names on the way. In the end, though, it was the European team that proved victorious, with Ellen van Dijk hauling them to the finishing line with her immense rouleuse power, and as a result claiming the first maglia rosa of the race. Obviously her whole team is at the same time, and it still remains unclear who will lead Sunweb on this parcours, but with the Australian squad it is a bit more obvious, with Annemiek van Vleuten the obvious leading candidate, with Emakumeen Bira winner Amanda Spratt the clear option B; Lucy Kennedy was dropped in the TTT and lost a couple of minutes already, as Roy and Elvin were the two to chaperone the main leaders, but she'll come into her own in the climbs.
The usual dominators of this format are Boels-Dolmans, but without their strongest engine in Anna van der Breggen, they weren't quite as indomitable as usual - though 3rd place and a deficit of just 12" for Guarnier to contend with is not bad at all, though they certainly aren't used to crossing the line with minimum numbers. The next team at the line was Cervélo-Bigla, 22" back from Sunweb, who shepherded Ash expertly and with Cille being strong against the clock as well as specialist Ann-Sophie Duyck they had a good core to build around. Canyon are also within 30", which could be important as obviously Niewiadoma is looking to make the mountains her playground here - her best performances of that kind have tended to be over climbs in the 5-8km kind of range so it'll be interesting to see if she can kick on on these longer climbs, with a small deficit to pull back. Canyon were very well organised too, only Alexis Ryan not coming in on the same time, and that's because she sat up at the line, not because she was dropped. WaowDeals are also in contention, at 35", but the bigger news for them is Rooijakkers being dropped as she's a strong climber, though she was in woeful form at the Women's Tour. Rounding out the biggest teams, Wiggle-High 5 came in at 39", led across the line by Longo Borghini, who already has a bit of an uphill battle and her run of poor luck or poor form on home roads continues - however uphill battles are the kind of racing she likes, so hopefully we see some.
There was a big gap of over 30" from the top 7 down to the rest, which was led in by Movistar at the head of 10 teams within around 30" of one another. Perhaps the most interesting here from a GC perspective is FDJ at +1'13", with Shara Gillow, and BePink at +1'19". Alé-Cipollini are disappointingly far down the order, but I suspect the GC is now a distant concern with Ensing a late scratch, and Marta dropped in the TTT.
1 Sunweb (van Dijk, Brand, Lippert, Labous, Soek, Kirchmann, Winder)
2 Mitchelton-Scott (van Vleuten, Spratt, Roy, Elvin) +1"
3 Boels (Canuel, Blaak, Guarnier, Pieters) +12"
4 Cervélo (Lepistö, Moolman-Pasio, Ludwig, Koppenburg, Duyck) +22"
5 Canyon-SRAM (Barnes, Barnes, Amialiusik, Niewiadoma, Cecchini, Cromwell) +26"
6 WaowDeals (Stultiens, Vos, Koster, Markus, Rowe) +35"
7 Wiggle-High 5 (Longo Borghini, Wild, Cordon-Ragot, Yonamine, Ritter) +39"
8 Movistar (Jasinska, García, Merino, Llamas, Neylan, Biannic) +1'11"
9 FDJ (Gillow, Kitchen, Slik, Fournier, Duval, Tenniglo) +1'13"
10 Trek-Drops (Wiles, Parkinson, Buurman, Holden, Hammes, Payton) +1'18"
11 Valcar-PBM (Confalonieri, Consonni, Muccioli, Paladin, Sanguineti, Persico) +1'19"
12 BePink (Guderzo, Pattaro, Ragusa, Magnaldi, Sperotto, Steigenga) +1'19"
13 Alé-Cipollini (Hosking, Knetemann, Santesteban, Paladin) +1'27"
14 Virtu (Guarischi, Schweizer, Hansen, Penton, Koster, Ålerud) +1'32"
15 Astana (Rodríguez, Moreno, Alzini, Beggin, Bertizzolo) +1'38"
16 Cylance (Ratto, Bronzini, Tagliaferro, Stephens) +1'39"
17 Eurotarget-Bianchi (Fidanza, Covrig, Silvestri, Gasparini) +1'42"
18 Servetto-Stradalli (Dobrynina, Potokina, Sanabria, Bessone, Parra, Casasola, Pillon) +2'00"
19 BTC City-Ljubljana (Pavlukhina, Batagelj, Pintar, Zigart) +2'07"
20 Concerina Zabri-Fanini (Franchi, Cipriani, de Iuliis, Salton, Fernandes Silva) +2'07"
21 Top Girls Fassa Bortolo (Leonardi, Quagliotto, Rossato, Pisciali, Perini) +2'12"
22 SC Michela Fanini (Chacón, Shekel, Vysotska, Király, Ceoloni, Marturano) +2'13"
23 Aromitalia-Vaiano (Laizane, Leleivyte, Nesti, de Ranieri, Bulleri, Marchesini, Balducci) +2'22"
24 Bizkaia-Durango (Christmas, González, Martínez, Arzuffi) +2'23"