Simon Geschke pulled out a strong prologue performance to finish 17th, with the fastest time of the Team Giant-Alpecin riders at Tirreno-Adriatico’s opening prologue in Lido di Camaiore.

Geschke raced round the 5.4km circuit in a time of 6’14”, in an average speed of just short of 52km/h, leaving him 10 seconds adrift of the fastest time of the day from Adriano Malori (Movistar). Nikias Arndt was next a further two seconds back with Chad Haga four seconds behind Geschke and also in the top 40.

The stage was planned to be a team time trial but in the days ahead of the race the organisers switched the format to an individual effort due to problematic wind conditions causing damage to the route. The chosen course was a fast, flat 5.4km effort that was won by Malori in a time of 6’04”, just edging out Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) to take the first blue leader’s jersey of the race.

After the stage, coach Rudi Kemna briefly summed up the performances: “Simon had a good day today and a top 20 here in this company is not an easy one. Nikias and Chad also had good time trials, finishing another two and four seconds back. The rest of the guys were at the right level and didn’t make any silly mistakes ahead of the coming week of racing.”

Luka Mezgec, recovering from illness in the days prior to the start here, added: “It was like I expected today. I held myself back a bit and didn’t go all out from the off, and then in the final 2km I tried to go full gas but didn’t have much power in the legs. But I hope that during this week I will keep improving and get that comfortable feeling back in the legs.”