I have to admit to have not been paying much attention to the pro scene at all lately.  I dont think I’m alone in that either.  It is the reason however that I completely missed the news that the Tour of Italy has started.  Thankfully it’s only one stage down with the second stage currently being raced.  To be honest though I’m missing most of this second stage because of the final games of the Premier League season.  It’s only early in the Giro and this — afterall — is the crunch games to see who will win and who will go down from the Premier League.

Stage 1 in the Giro was a 23.6km team time trial.  Bit strange seeing something like that starting a tour and believe it or not but the pink leaders jersey goes to the rider from the winning team that crossed the line first in his team.  Bizarre and it’s making me wonder does each team sprint for the line in the hope that the winning rider will get that leaders jersey should his team post the best time?  Now I’m beginning to really regret having missed the start of this race.  I would have liked to have seen that one.

Anyway, the winning team was that new team, Slipstream Chipotle Presented By H30, which I was glad to see.  They beat CSC into second place and another new team, Team High Road into third.  Good to see two very anti-drug teams finishing first and third.

As it turns out it was Christian Vande Velde who was the first man across the line for Slipstream and so he takes the Pink jersey into today’s race.

As for todays race . . . Flicking over to Eurosport from the football  . . . There is a huge bunch together and I believe they are not very far from the line.  6km’s according to Sean Kelly who has told us that we will see the real action in the last 4k.

So, it’s great to have a major tour back on.  Just in time for the end of the footballing season.

*****

As it turned out Riccardo Riccò beat out fellow Italian Danilo Di Luca for the win.  Overall the new leader in Pink will be Franco Pellizotti.  Christian Vande Velde falls to second in whats been a good day for the Italians at their home race.

Category: Pro-Tours » » The Giro |

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