The waiting time is finally over! Tomorrow at 18.50 CEST the first team will roll down the start ramp to kick off the first grand tour of the season, the Giro d'Italia, and the GC riders have something at stake right from the beginning. The 21.7km team time trial in the streets of Belfast will offer the first chance to gain some seconds and will determine the first wearer of the prestigious maglia rosa.

The course

Two years after the start in Denmark, the Giro d'Italia again takes off far from its home country as the race continues its constant process of internationalization. For the first time ever, Northern Ireland will host a grand tour when the capital of Belfast is the scene of the opening stage of the race and will kick off three days of racing in the country and the neighbouring Ireland before a return to Italy follows on an early rest day.

A few years ago, the Giro organizers had almost established a tradition of opening their race with a team time trial but over the last few years, they have abandoned the idea. Last year the sprinters got a chance to take the first maglia rosa of the race and in 2012 a short prologue in Denmark kicked off the three weeks of racing. This year, however, the race returns to the tradition of starting things off with the beautiful collective discipline for the first time since 2011 when Marco Pinotti led a triumphant HTC-Highroad across the line in Turin.

It's not a rare thing for a grand tour to start with a team time trial and such opening stages are often held entirely on a flat course in a major city. This year it will be no different when the riders take on a 21.7km course in the city of Belfast. There are a few corners in the first part but it is followed by 6km on a completely straight road. Then the riders go up a 1.1km climb with an average gradient of 3% before heading down back to the same straight road along which they go all the way back. In the final six kilometres, there are several corners and technical sections will test the cohesiveness of the team.

The last kilometres run slightly uphill and are raced entirely on city roads, with short half-turns leading to the final right hand bend, which – in turn – leads to the 300m long home stretch on 8m wide, asphalted roadway.

The weather

Since arriving in Belfast, the riders have had a bit of everything as they have been greeted by typical Irish weather. It seems that those constantly changing conditions will be the order of their entire stay on the green island, with showers, occasional sunshine and lots of wind making for an interesting mix for the first three stages.

Those ever-changing conditions also make it a bit hard to predict which conditions the riders will have for the opening team time trial and the weather forecasts aren't totally in compliance. At the moment, it seems that the most likely scenario is that there will be lots of showers in the morning hours but by the time the stage starts in the early evening, it should have dried up and there may even be a bit of sunshine. However, the risk of showers is constant and unfortunately it could mean that the teams won't race under equal conditions.

In the morning hours, there will be a rather strong wind from a westerly direction but as the day goes on, it should decrease significantly and turn more into a southwesterly direction. The riders will have a tailwind in the first part of the course and a headwind on the long straight road back to the finish before turning into a crosswind for the final technical part. With the wind abating a bit in the evening, the later starters may have a slight advantage.

The favourites

The small climb to the Parliament Buildings won't be too challenging and with most of the course made up of long, straight roads, this is a stage that will be dominated by the teams that really specialize in this discipline. Several teams have made this day a clear target as opening team time trials have the added prestige of not only offering a possible stage victory but also the first maglia rosa of the race. For the sprinters, it will be important to limit their losses as they may get a chance to take the leader's jersey in the following sprint stages by virtue of bonus seconds. And for the GC riders, it will be an early chance to deal their rivals a blow.

In such a short, flat team time trial, time differences are usually rather small though and so the potential gains are unlikely to play a role by the time the riders reach the finish in Trieste in three weeks time. On the other hand, it will be important to start the race off on the right footing and from a psychological point of view, the stage is an important one as it can set the tone for the opening week of the race where there is a lot to lose but not much to gain for the GC riders.

Over the last year, Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Orica-GreenEDGE have developed a fierce rivalry in these flat team time trials that suit the really powerful teams, with the two teams finishing within a second of each other at last year's Tour and World Championships and the Belgians beating the Australians in the Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this year. However, those two teams have completely different approaches to this year's Giro and so we are unlikely to see a continuation of their rivalry in tomorrow's stage.

While Omega Pharma-Quick Step have left almost all their specialists at home as they prepare themselves to rally around Rigoberto Uran for three weeks of mainly mountainous racing, Orica-GreenEDGE have made the opening TTT probably their biggest target of the entire race and they have selected riders for their line-up with a pure focus on the opening day. Already one of the two strongest teams in the discipline, they line up almost their entire A team for this race and as none of their rivals have done the same, they head into this stage as the overwhelming favourites.

Svein Tuft has so often proved his worth in this discipline and the powerful Canadian will again guide the troops throughout the 21.7km. He will combine forces with fellow TT specialists Luke Durbridge, Michael Hepburn, Brett Lancaster and Cameron Meyer that all excel on this kind of flat course and they can further count on Jens Mouris and Michael Matthews who are both very skilled time trialists as well. The only weak points in the line-up are Pieter Weening and Ivan Santaromita but it should do nothing to prevent the Australians from taking a rather comfortable victory. Italian champion Santaromita will be pleased to get his GC campaign off to an excellent start but he will have to dig very deep to keep up with his powerful teammates. He may find himself with little support in the mountains later in the race but at least his team should give his race the best possible start.

With the maglia rosa at stake, it is of course interesting to see which rider will cross the line first. The team will probably try to maximize the media exposure in Australia and so it will probably be one of their Australians. Matthews would be a good bet as the team would love to see him do Saturday's expected sprint with the maglia rosa on his shoulders. Loyal teammate Lancaster could be another option as could Durbridge but it is not totally unlikely that the team decides to reward Tuft for his tireless work by allowing him a brief moment in the spotlight.

Honestly, it is very hard to imagine that anyone will be able to beat Orica-GreenEDGE but there are a few teams that should do well on this kind of course. Movistar have a lot of tiny climbers in their line-up but they have some big engines as well. Adriano Malori is probably the biggest of them all in this race and he will join forces by Jonathan Castroviejo to form a very strong duo for the Spanish team. Andrey Amador is another great time trialist and even Nairo Quintana has improved a lot in the discipline.

Movistar have always placed a lot of emphasis on the team time trials and have almost done really well, often much better than one would expect from their roster. This year the signing of Malori have made them even stronger and they proved their strength when a very similar line-up finished 3rd in the Tirreno TTT earlier this year. This time they miss Alex Dowsett and Benat Intxausti and so won't be quite as strong but Malori will still make a very big difference in tomorrow's stage. In 2012 they won the opening stage of the Vuelta and last year they were 2nd in the Giro, 5th in the Vuelta and 7th in the Tour. They may lack the depth to beat Orica-GreenEDGE but they certainly have the power to finish on the podium.

Over the last few years, BMC have been a perennial disappointment in the team time trials, most recently in Tirreno where they could only manage 11th. However, the team seems to be on a roll at the moment after they took a very dominant win in the Trentino TTT to put Daniel Oss in the leader's jersey and set Cadel Evans up for his overall victory. They have a very similar line-up for this race and this automatically makes them one of the favouries.

Oss, Evans, Manuel Quinziato, Ben Hermans, Samuel Sanchez and Brent Bookwalter are all very skilled time trialists and even though none of them are real specialists, they form the core of what should be a very homogeneous team. They lack the really powerful rider that can make the difference on the long straight roads and so it is hard to imagine that they will win the stage. That is probably what have cost them so dearly in their recent TTTs but at the moment they are really on a roll. A cohesive team performance should see Evans get his race off to a great start.

Since they won the team time trial in the Tirreno-Adriatico in 2011, Belkin have rarely featured at the top of the leaderboard in team time trials but tomorrow they may buck the trend. On paper they have a very powerful roster for this kind of flat course and they loom as a dangerous outsider. Rick Flens, Maarten Tjallingii, Jos Van Emden, Martijn Keizer and Wilco Kelderman are all great time trialists and they should form the core of a very cohesive and strong unit. Like BMC they lack the real powerhouses that Movistar and Orica-GreenEDGE have but they have a very homogenous team with few really weak points. There is a big chance that Kelderman and Steven Kruijswijk will get their race off to a great start.

Team Sky won last year's team time trial and this time they have a very similar roster. However, they lack their main engine, Bradley Wiggins, and this year's flat course is very different from last year's hilly and technical affair. Nonetheless, they still have a solid team for this kind of effort as the addition of Edvald Boasson Hagen and Ben Swift to a roster that already included the likes of Dario Cataldo and Kanstantsin Siutsou should give them a few opportunities. However, they also have a few riders who won't play much of a role in this stage and this could prove costly in the end. A good ride could see them finish on the podium though.

Even though they don't have their specialists in this race, world champions Omega Pharma-Quick Step deserve a mention. Thomas De Gendt, Iljo Keisse, Julien Vermote, Alessandro Petacchi and Rigoberto Uran - who suddenly seems to have turned into some kind of a TT specialist - should all be able to do some powerful turns. That should be enough to give Uran a solid start to his race but without the likes of Tony Martin, Niki Terpstra, Tom Boonen and Michal Kwiatkowski, it won't be enough to win. A podium spot could be within reach if they produce a super performance.

Finally, we will select our jokers. Giant-Shimano have a reputation of usually finishing near the bottom of the rankings in the team time trials as they often save their energy for the sprint stages. Tomorrow they will have a different approach as it will be important to keep Marcel Kittel within shouting distance of the maglia rosa. On paper they have a lot of strong guys like Kittel, Tobias Ludvigsson, Tom Stamsnijder, Simon Geschke and Tom Veelers that should all be able to make a solid contribution in this kind of effort. They may lack a bit of experience in the discipline but tomorrow they have a clear incentive to go full gas and we wouldn't be surprised to see them finish far higher than usual.

When you look down the Cannondale roster, you won't find any big TT specialists but the team has a history of excelling in this discipline. Earlier this year they were 5th in Tirreno and even though they will miss a few key riders from that line-up, they have a cohesive team for tomorrow's stage. Moreno Moser will be the driving force and he can count on solid support from the likes of Elia Viviani, Michel Koch and veterans Alan Marangoni and Paolo Longo Borghini. With no really big specialists, they certainly won't win the stage but if everything runs smoothly, they could finish in the top 5.

CyclingQuotes' stage winner pick: Orica-GreenEDGE

Other winner candidates: Movistar, BMC

Outsiders: Belkin, Sky, Omega Pharma-Quick Step

Jokers: Giant-Shimano, Cannondale