Slovenian leads Britain's Simon Yates by 19 seconds
Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) blew the race apart early on (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Jumbo-Visma's Primož Roglič dominated the opening stage of the 2019 Giro d'Italia on Saturday, winning the individual time trial by 19 seconds from second-placed Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), with former Giro winner Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) finishing another four seconds back to take third place.
Roglič took the race's first maglia rosa thanks to a strong ride across the 8.2km course in Bologna, measuring his effort so that he'd kept enough in the tank for the final 2km climb up to the finish.
"I finished well, and I'm happy with today's performance," the Slovenian said. "It's quite an advantage, so I'm really happy."
Winner of the 2017 edition of the race, Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), could only take fifth place on the stage, losing 28 seconds to Roglič, but gave it everything, saying afterwards that the climb up to the finish was "brutal" on a time trial bike.
Watch the highlights from stage 1 of the 2019 Giro d'Italia below.
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