Primož Roglič has won his first race against the watch as Olympic TT champion, the Slovenian claiming the stage 1 test that opened Vuelta 2021 yesterday.
He won the stage by six seconds from Alex Aranburu (Astana-Premier Tech), with Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Victorious) 3rd at eight seconds.
While the early gains, or losses, will not decide the race, Jumbo Visma team leader Roglič has already put useful time into his rivals, especially the Ineos Grenadiers duo of Egan Bernal and Richard Carapaz.
Bernal has already won the Giro this year while Carapaz was 3rd in the Tour de France and won the road race at the Olympics last month, and was 2nd to Roglič at La Vuelta last year.
While British team Ineos Grenadiers placed one rider in the top 10 - Dylan van Baarle 6th at 11 seconds - yesterday in the 7.1km TT in Burgos, his two fancied team mates were much further down.
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Carapaz was 35th at 25 seconds while Bernal placed 46th at 27 seconds; not insignificant time to give away to Roglič given his climbing abilities. Adam Yates fared better for the team; placing 16th, some 20 seconds down on the time of 8:32 recorded by Roglič.
The other big star in the Ineos Grenadiers line-up, Olympic MTB champion Tom Pidcock, made an indifferent Grand Tour debut yesterday; placing 74th at 36 seconds. However, he has had time off since his win in Japan and he is almost guaranteed to do something special in the next three weeks.
Ineos Grenadiers aside, the gains Roglič made yesterday in his fight for a third Vuelta GC win included: 14 seconds over 10th placed Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech); 15 seconds over 12th placed Sepp Kus (Jumbo Visma); 17 seconds over 14th placed Romain Bardet (Team DSM); 18 seconds over 15th placed Enric Mas (Movistar); 21 seconds over 20th and 21st placed Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) and Miguel Ángel López (Movistar); 33 seconds over 62nd Hugh Carthy (EF Education Nippo) and 39 seconds over 88th Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious).
Today's stage 2 takes the riders some 166.7km from Caleruega to Burgos and though there are some lumps and bumps along the way, it looks like one for the sprinters. Ireland has no riders in the race, for the first time in five years.
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