Taylor Phinney wins the opening stage of the Giro d’ Italia 2012
Taylor Phinney of Team BMC wins the opening stage of the Giro d’ Italia 2012.
The cyclist crossed the finish line in a fastest time of 10 minutes and 26 seconds to occupy the top spot while Geraint Thomas of Team Sky and Alex Rasmussen of Team Garmin-Barracuda achieved the next two positions.
Thomas followed the back wheel of Phinney for a long time but failed to match the likes of the young American.
He finished the race 9 seconds behind and while Rasmussen fell further 4 seconds behind the stage winner.
Manuele Boaro of Team Saxo Bank, Gustav Larsson of Team Vacansoleil-DCM, Brett Lancaster of Team Orica GreenEdge, Marco Pinotti of Team BMC, Jesse Sergent of Team RadioShack and Nelson Oliveira of Team Radioshack-Nissan achieved the next seven positions.
Taylor old joined Team BMC in 2011 and has secured his first Grand Tour victory of the season at the Italian race.
He was delighted after the stage win and noted, "This is incredibly special for me, I've been nervous for a couple of weeks coming into this race, but nervous in a good way”.
“I knew I could do something really big here today. It just came down to going out there and doing it".
"I was in a very deep zone of pain by then, which is always a good sign. It's a huge honour to be here in Denmark, and wearing the leader's jersey is just incredible".
Phinney is now holding the leader’s jersey after the stage 1 victory and is optimistic to continue his dominance during the coming stages of the race.
The stage win has earned Taylor 25 UCI points while Geraint and Rasmussen secured 20 and 16 points respectively.
Team Garmin-Barracuda is leading the team’s classifications with Team BMC and Team Orica GreenEdge at the second and the third positions.
Team RadioShack-Nissan, Team Sky and Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep are holding the fourth, the fifth and the sixth positions in the respective order.
Taylor is now targeting the 206 kilometre stage 2 of the race scheduled in Herning and the cyclist is determined to extend his overall lead for the coming stages of the race.
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