Wiggins wins Giro opener

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Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) blasted his way to victory in the opening individual time trial stage of the Giro d'Italia in Amsterdam on Saturday afternoon to claim the first maglia rosa of the race. The 30-year-old Briton, a multi-time Olympic gold medalist and world champion in the pursuit, showcased his renowned prowess against the clock as he covered the 8.4 kilometre course in a time of 10:18.

Wiggins, resplendent in his white skinsuit as Great Britain's reigning time trial champion, applied a razor-sharp focus to his race of truth and delivered a series of firsts for himself and Team Sky. For Wiggins, the victory was his first Grand Tour stage win and leader's jersey. Likewise for Team Sky, as the Giro d'Italia is the British ProTour squad's inaugural Grand Tour.

"It was hard. I just did my own race and was oblivious to anyone else. I was oblivious to anyone on the course, I was in my own world. That's how I always do these things," said Wiggins after finishing his time trial.

Another squad making its Grand Tour debut, BMC Racing Team, made an impressive start to the Giro with a pair of riders finishing second and third behind Wiggins. Second place went to 26-year-old American Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing Team) who rode the time trial of his life in his first Grand Tour to finish two seconds down on Wiggins.

Bookwalter, the 144th rider to leave the start house, sat in the hot seat for more than an hour until Wiggins, the 186th starter, bested the American's time.

Bookwalter's teammate, world champion Cadel Evans, finished in the same time to round out the top three. Evans showed that he is serious about this race, as he turned in the best performance of the main GC favourites. However, Astana's Alexandre Vinokourov is hot on his heels, finishing fourth, three seconds behind the 33-year-old Australian.

As an intermittent rain fell on Amsterdam throughout the day, Wiggins admitted the potential impact of wet weather had played on his mind. However, with all his competitors facing the same conditions, the Briton elected to throw caution to the wind in a bid to secure the first Grand Tour leader's jersey of his career.

"It was frustrating during the day because it [the rain] was on, off, on, off. But to be honest it looked like everyone had a similar run," he said. "I couldn't control that so I just put it to one side and said 'It is what it is,' and I'd just get on with it. If I crashed, I crashed. I never touched the brakes. I said bollocks to it. This is my opportunity to get the pink jersey and I'm going to go for it and die trying.

"I went for it. I've been preparing pretty well for this, so I knew what I could do. Speed in the corners is one of the biggest thing with prologues like this. You have to commit. You can't mess about. You've got to give 100 percent in the corners. If you want to win it, you've got to commit 100 percent, like a sprinter when they go for a sprint."

A wet start to the Giro

The 93rd Giro d'Italia started in Amsterdam's Museumplein, flanked by the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum, at 1:55pm with Germany's Matthias Russ (Team Milram) the first rider to leave the start house for the technical 8.4km time trial. Another German, Sebastian Lang (Omega Pharma-Lotto), the 2006 national time trial champion, started six minutes later and would set the early benchmark of 10:48 for the 8.4km time trial.

Lang's tenure atop the leader board would be short lived, however, as Ukraine's Andriy Grivko (Astana) finished nine minutes later with a new best time of 10:31. Grivko, who has won Ukraine's national time trial championship each of the past five years, would be bumped from the hot seat by the day's 60th starter and time trial ace Gustav Erik Larsson (Team Saxo Bank).The 29-year-old Swede, silver medalist at both the 2008 Olympic time trial and 2009 time trial world championship, knocked six seconds off Grivko's mark to finish in 10:25.

Larsson's time kept him in the hot seat for nearly one and half hours until the USA's Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing Team) made a stunning start to his and his team's debut Grand Tour by supplanting the Swede with a time of 10:20. Bookwalter has time trial victories in his palmares, including the American U23 time trial championship in 2006 and the 2009 Tour of Utah prologue, but would the 26-year-old American's time hold up against the final 54 starters at the Giro d'Italia?

Greg Henderson (HTC-Columbia) came close to Bookwalter, finishing three seconds down while proven time trialist David Millar (Garmin-Transitions) finished in 10:24, four seconds off the pace.

Wiggins, however, followed directly after Millar with a time of 10:18 to knock Bookwalter from the hot seat. Of the remaining riders to contest the opening stage, Bookwalter's teammate Cadel Evans would come the closest to besting Wiggins, but the world champion and heavy Giro favourite would fall two seconds shy of Wiggins as well, ultimately good enough for third place.