No surprise that the reigning world champions took the victory in the team time trial. Team Sunweb finished all of their seven riders together and edged out Michelton-Scott, but only by one solitary second. The Australian team crossed the line with just four riders together (Van Vleuten, Spratt, Roy and Elvin) and Boels-Dolmans were in third, again with just four riders (Canuel, Blaak, Pieters and Guarnier).

Cervelo-Bigla, Canyon-SRAM Waowdeals and Wiggle-High5 are the only other teams within 40 seconds, meaning the likes of Lauren Kitchen (FDJ) and Rosella Ratto (Cylance) already face a huge deficit before they get a real chance to influence the shape of the race.

Sunweb and Michelton-Scott have major TT motors, and years of specific training made the difference yesterday. There was no holding back on a blisteringly hot day on the shores of Lake Maggiore, with Sunweb just hitting it full gas from the start. Ellen Van Dijk said afterwards: “What a great start to this Giro Rosa! We came into this TTT well prepared and everybody did a great job on this fast course. We knew we had to go very fast from the start and we had a clear plan for the race. As always, we used each others strength in the best possible way and we executed the plan almost to perfection. It’s great to win this stage together as a team. The spirit is super high as we couldn’t start this Giro in a better way!”

Sunweb’s directeur sportif Hans Timmermans said: “Today we saw amazing team work from everyone. Normally a TTT is already teamwork at it’s best but today was even more because all seven girls did their job and did it in a excellent way until the finish. Ellen taking the jersey is great, and to have Liane in the young jersey is great too. We’re really motivated to continue this momentum into the remainder of the race.”

So, Van Dijk takes the first maglia rosa of the race, and the young German rider Lianne Lippert picks up the young rider’s white jersey. Assuming their are no surprises on the road, stage 2 should be a sprinters’ day meaning Sunweb should be able to control things and keep Van Dijk in the overall lead, while the likes of Lucinda Brand and Leah Kirchmann will be protected for the general classification battles to come.

Stage 1 Result, Verbania-Verbania, 16.5kms

1 Sunweb     18′ 24″

2 Michelton-Scott     + 1″

3 Boels-Dolmans     + 12″

4 Cervelo-Bigla     +22″

5 Canyon-SRAM     + 26″

6 Waowdeals     + 35″

7 Wiggle-High5     + 39″

8 Movistar     + 1′ 11″

9 FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope     + 1′ 13″

10 Trek-Drops     + 1′ 10″