Tirreno-Adriatico 2024: Challenge to Vingegaard: Ayuso wins the opening time trial

For the third time in a row, Tirreno-Adriatico started with an individual time trial on the beach of Camaiore - but after two victories in previous years, Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) was unable to celebrate his hat-trick. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) finished one second ahead of the Italian and took the stage win.

Juan Ayuso takes seconds off Jonas Vingegaard

With a time of 11:24 minutes and an average speed of 52.632 km/h, Juan Ayuso was the fastest of the day on the 10 kilometre long, flat and not very technical course. The Spaniard not only took the day's victory ahead of Filippo Ganna, but also took important seconds off the top favourite for the overall classification. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) took 22 seconds longer than Ayuso to complete the course and finished ninth. This means that the Tour de France winner of the last two years goes into tomorrow's stage with a gap to his rival.

"I didn't know if I had won until the end. It's a very emotional and special victory for me. It motivates me to look ahead." - Juan Ayuso in the winner's interview

>> These are the favourites for overall victory at Tirreno-Adriatico

>> All stages & the start list of Tirreno-Adriatico

>> New time trial helmets provoke discussion

Tirreno-Adriatico 2024: Results: The top 10 of stage 1

1. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) 11:24
2. Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) +0:01
3. Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) +0:12
4. Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech) +0:13
5. Josef Cerny (Soudal - Quick Step) +0:14
6. Sören Waerenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) +0:15
7. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious) +0:17
8. Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) +0:18
9. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) +0:22
10. Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) +0:22

>> Results from Tirreno-Adriatico 2024

How the 1st stage of Tirreno-Adriatico 2024 went

The top favourite for the overall victory of the tour set the first target time: Jonas Vingegaard, who started the race quite early in third place today and set the first scent mark with a time of 11:46 minutes. However, it didn't take long for the Dane's time to fall. First Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) surpassed him, then the Norwegian Sören Waerenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) took the lead, taking seven seconds off Vingegaard.

Josef Cerny (Soudal - Quick Step) and the actual sprint specialist Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), who was able to capitalise on the high-speed course lead, crossed the finish line just ahead of the leading Norwegian. However, one rider pulled away from all the others at this point: Juan Ayuso took a clear lead with his fabulous time, which no other rider was able to put under pressure for a long time.

It was only towards the end of the race that things got really exciting again at the front. Filippo Ganna started the race as one of the last starters and showed at the intermediate time that he was a force to be reckoned with - at this point he was two seconds behind the lead. However, the Italian was narrowly beaten at the finish. He was just one second short of taking the day's victory.

While Ayuso made up time on Vingegaard in the race for overall victory, Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) probably squandered his ambitions in the classification. Over a minute behind the day's winner, he didn't have the best day and didn't have the best weather conditions compared to many of the other riders. Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Daniel Felipe Martinez and Jai Hindley (both Bora-Hansgrohe) finished just behind Vingegaard and didn't lose much ground on the top favourite. The best German was Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe) in 14th place.