Blue jersey changes hands just before stage 2 after timing errors are corrected
Tao Geoghegan Hart in the blue jersey ahead of stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia(Image credit: Getty Images)
Despite Brandon McNulty taking to Saturday's podium in the blue jersey, it will in fact be Tao Geoghegan Hart who wears the King of the Mountains jersey on stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia, with the results being revised on Sunday morning.
As explored on Cyclingnews, McNulty's split timings for the stage 1 time trial did not add up, and the errors have now been acknowledged by the race organisers.
On Sunday morning, UAE Team Emirates indicated to Cyclingnews that McNulty would start in the blue jersey as normal but once they arrived at the start in Teramo, the organisers came along to take it and hand it over to Geoghegan Hart.
McNulty will start in the white jersey of best young rider, despite being third in that classification, with Remco Evenepoel wearing the pink jersey as overall leader and McNulty's teammate Joao Almeida choosing to wear the Portuguese national champion's jersey.
The KOM confusion stems from the final 2.8km of the 19.6km time trial course, which went uphill to the finish line in Ortona and, for the purposes of the mountains classification, was treated as its own separate segment.
The official results state McNulty went up in a time of 3:51, some 12 seconds quicker than Geoghegan Hart. However, McNulty's timings for the first two sections of the course are quite clearly wrong, supposedly way off the pace in the opening 9.6km and then riding above 61km/h for the subsequent 7km.
McNulty expressed surprise after Saturday's stage and he was still non-plussed at the start of stage 2, although he had no complaints over losing the blue jersey.
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"There was a bit of confusion," he said with a chuckle at sign-on. "I found out 20 minutes ago. I don't really know [what happened]. I have no idea."
McNulty speaks in the white jersey ahead of stage 2 (Image credit: Barry Ryan)
The Giro organisers issued a statement as the stage started to address the matter.
"Due to a digital error on the bib number, yesterday the blue jersey was erroneously awarded to Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates)," it read. "Following a second check, the blue jersey was assigned to Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers), the rider who set the fastest time from the second time to the finish.
"As a result, the white jersey, whose classification is led by the pink jersey Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), will be worn by Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates)."
McNulty is in fact third in the young rider classification but Almeida is able to prioritise his Portugues jersey and turn down white.
"If this rider must wear his world or national champion's jersey [...] he shall wear that jersey," read the UCI regulations.
Patrick is a freelance sports writer and editor. He’s an NCTJ-accredited journalist with a bachelor’s degree in modern languages (French and Spanish). Patrick worked full-time at Cyclingnews for eight years between 2015 and 2023, latterly as Deputy Editor.
