Meyer wins time trial opener in Tour de Suisse

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Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge) claimed victory on the opening stage of the Tour of Switzerland after he mastered the 8.1km time trial course around Quinto to take the first yellow jersey ahead of Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) and Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling).

The Australian was among the early starters and he endured a lengthy wait in the hot seat after clocking the fastest time, but as the wind began to pick up out on the course, so too did Meyer’s hopes of holding off the challenge of the later starters.

As the likes of Tejay van Garderen (73rd at 45 seconds), Andreas Klöden (66th at 43 seconds) and Peter Sagan (40th at 35 seconds) all crossed the line well down on Meyer’s time, it became evident that the change in wind direction was causing major problems for the later starters, and soon, only Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Leopard) stood between Meyer and victory.

Although time trialling is no longer a particular focus for Cancellara, he remains a redoubtable force against the watch, especially on home roads. As expected, the Swiss rider was the best of the late finishers and clocked a fine time considering the conditions, but he could not get close to Meyer, crossing the line 22 seconds down in 16th place.

Meyer allowed himself a bashful smile as Cancellara finished his effort, safe in the knowledge that defending champion Rui Costa (Movistar) would not trouble the leaderboard. The Orica-GreenEdge man humbly acknowledged that he had been helped greatly by being among the early starters.

“Obviously I had some help with the weather as the wind was favourable for me, being one of the first riders off,” Meyer said. “The back riders struggled after the wind switched around. I'm happy to take the jersey.”

It would be unfair in the extreme, however, to chalk Meyer’s victory down solely to the conditions. The 25-year-old showed great poise to master the 8.1km course and was easily the best of the men who raced with the wind in their favour – he put ten seconds into runner-up Niki Terpstra, 15 seconds into Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Sharp) and 19 into Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp).

Meyer has considerable time trialling pedigree, too, of course and he explained that 2013 has been the first season where he has been able to focus wholly on his road endeavours. Winner of the points race at the world track championships in 2012, Meyer only withdrew from the Australian track programme in April of last year.

“I’m making the transition to being a full-time road rider,” Meyer said. “This is my first year not riding the track and I’m learning a lot. To wear the leader’s jersey in a WorldTour race means a lot to me.”

Defending champion Rui Costa finished the stage 40 seconds down on Meyer and just ahead of a number of his principal rivals for overall honours, such as Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff), who lost 44 seconds, van Garderen, Klöden and Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp), who narrowly avoided a crash and crossed the line 58 seconds down. Others to concede terrain in the opening time trial include Michele Scarponi (121st at 1:00) and Andy Schleck (134 at 1:06).

They will have the opportunity to recoup ground immediately, however, as Sunday’s stage two brings the race over the hors-categorie Nufenenpass before a summit finish atop Crans-Montana, where Laurent Fignon put the cap on his 1984 Tour de France victory.

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