Filippo Ganna got his first-ever Giro d’Italia off to the perfect start by winning the opening individual time trial in what also proved to be a good day for his INEOS Grenadiers team-mate Geraint Thomas.

Ganna produced an incredible average speed of 58.8km/h on the 15.1km course from Monreale to Palermo and crossed the line in a time of 15 minutes and 24 seconds.

That proved 22 seconds faster than Joao Almeida (Deceuninck – Quick-Step), who took second place on the stage ahead of the third-placed Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates).

Geraint Thomas was just one second further off the pace in fourth position but he was by far the quickest of the pre-race favourites.

Only Simon Yates (Mitchelton-SCOTT) got within 26 seconds of the Welshman, with Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo) and Steven Kruijswijk (Team Jumbo-Visma) all losing well over a minute.

The stage also claimed its first high-profile casualty, with Astana’s Miguel Angel Lopez being forced to abandon having crashed at the second intermediate time check.

The day ultimately belonged to Ganna though, and after the stage the 24 year old said: “I’m really happy and I want to thank my team for helping me arrive in good form at the Giro. I am looking forward to wearing the pink jersey tomorrow.”

Here’s a recap of some of the standout rider data recorded from the race: