Giro d’Italia 2023

Stage 1 – Costa dei Trabocchi Tudor ITT Fossacesia Marina > Ortona (19.6km)

Profile

Stage 1 Preview

We’re in the eastern region of Abruzzo for the Grande Partenza and a 19.6km run against the clock along the Adriatic coast. The route is flat until a short climb 3km out at an average gradient of 5.4% before levelling off to the line in Ortona.

With few turns until that uphill finish and no significant wind or rain forecast, this ought to favour the time trial specialists, though we’re unlikely to see huge time gaps between those hoping to end the day in pink.

Stage 1 Contenders

Ineos Grenadiers’ Filippo Ganna has raced five Giro d’Italia time trials and won the lot, including twice taking the leaders’ jersey after the opening stage. So it’s fair to say he values these races on home roads and tends to deliver. This will be a big season objective for the Italian and not surprisingly is the favourite at around even money.

Ganna comes off a runners-up spot in Milan-San Remo, where he impressively stayed on the wheel of Tadej Pogačar up the Poggio, and then sixth at Paris-Roubaix, just missing the decisive split 100km out which forced him to burn some early matches and maybe even cost him a place on the podium.

His main rival for this will be overall race favourite Remco Evenepoel who, despite conceding a huge weight advantage to Ganna, showed at Liège-Bastogne-Liège two week’s ago that he may just be a level above everyone else right now. Is it in Soudal-Quick Step’s interest to be carrying the burden of being in pink so early? Probably not, but Evenepoel needs to take advantage of these TTs and put as much time into the purer climbers as possible – he’ll be looking to put down a marker and is a best-price of 15/8 to do so.

Jumbo-Visma have three riders who could trouble the timekeepers in Primož Roglič, who we shouldn’t forget is the current Olympic time trial champion, Italian Edoardo Affini, who has twice made the places in Giro time trials and at 40/1 could offer some value, and Rohan Dennis, though the Aussie veteran was a late squad replacement due to Covid withdrawals and was recently sick himself before the Tour de Romandie.

Groupama-FDJ’s Stefan Küng had an excellent spring campaign with top six finishes in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix but lacks the explosivity of his main rivals and, along with Affini and Dennis, is likely to lose a bit of time on the uphill finish. The Swiss is third favourite at around 8/1 which seems short enough.

Bora-Hansgrohe’s Lennard Kämna finished a good second behind Ganna in the short TT at Tirreno-Adriatico and won a stage at the Tour of the Alps a couple of weeks back. Winner on Mount Etna at last year’s Giro, the German is clearly going well and could challenge the places at a decent 28/1.

As mentioned in the overall preview, UAE Team Emirates’ Jay Vine has been out with a knee injury since February so it’s difficult to know his level approaching this, but the former Zwift Academy winner should be no stranger to training alone and could be coming in hot. He seemed pretty optimistic in pre-race interviews and stated that he was targeting the TTs. UAE showed they have a good time trial setup with a first and third at the Tour de Romandie and at triple-figure odds the Australian time trial champion is worth a speculative each-way punt.

Stage 1 Bets

Edoardo Affini 0.5pts each way (3 places) @40/1

Jay Vine 0.5pts each way (3 places) @225/1

Posted 16.11 BST 5th May 2023

Prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change - find the best prices available on the Giro d’Italia at Oddschecker