Trek Factory Racing has come to the 98th edition of the Giro d'Italia with strong ambitions for a stage victory, and although the first day team time trial was never targeted for victory the pinstripes blasted the course with a competitive show of strength and speed.

They crossed the line in 19:55 (53.021 km/h) and slotted into second place provisionally, 16 seconds behind Astana, who would go on to finish in third place.  TFR.com grabbed a quote from General Manager Luca Guercilena soon after the team had finished and with most teams yet to complete the fast 17.6-kilometer course:

“For me we had a really good finish time. Our specialists were able to go deeper, and although some of the others were getting tired, in the end we did our job properly,"  Guercilena explained. “I think Astana made a very good tempo and they are a good reference, but we will have to see. There are a lot of teams to still come, and 16 seconds could be a lot, but also it might not be that much.”

In the end, Trek Factory Racing finished in 11th place, a carbon copy to last year’s placing. TTT specialist Kristof Vandewalle described how it felt out on the course:

“Lots of narrow roads, but it was a fast course. Yesterday in the recon we had the wind in our favor and today it was a headwind, which made it a little bit harder. For the first part, we immediately had a good speed, but we lost three guys. In the second part you could feel we had a harder time, some guys didn’t have the power to stay on the front and pull and we lost some precious seconds. I think on the first part we were on scheme to beat the best times, but in the last part we felt the efforts. But overall a good performance, better than in Romandie.” 

“For me, I felt good – I made some long pulls to keep the speed up and help the others recover. And I could hold it to the end so I am pretty happy with my performance.”

Orica GreedEdge, always a favorite when it comes to the team race against the clock, clocked the quickest time (19:26 and 54.340km/h) for the second successive year to take the win and first maglia rosa of the three-week Grand Tour. Tinkoff-Saxo finished in second place, seven seconds behind the Australian ProTeam.

Tomorrow the Giro d’Italia features its first road stage, an expected sprint finish, and Giacomo Nizzolo will have his first test to break the curse of the second place (he accumulated four in last year’s race).

“My feeling today was not bad,” said Nizzolo. “I think we did our best and when we compare our time to some of the teams who are strong in the TTT, I think we can be happy and confident for the other stages.  Everyone knows what happened last year when I was really close [to victory] several times, so this year I want to go to the top of the podium for once, at least.”