Primoz Roglic was 200^th of a second shy of a major upset in the opening time trial of the Giro d’Italia. The Slovenian Team LottoNL-Jumbo rider finished his time trial in 11-03 minutes and was provisionally the fastest for a long time. Only Tom Dumoulin (Giant - Alpecin) beat him by a hair.

“I didn’t even dream about winning this time trial,” Roglic said about his second place. “I’ve delivered some fine time trials, but they weren’t even close to what the specialists are capable of. I was very close today, though. I don’t think that I did anything wrong, but to be honest, I haven’t been thinking about it at all.

“It was totally crazy around me on the course. I wasn’t even able to hear my sports director talking to me through the ear piece.”

Painful

Sports Director Addy Engels was not expecting Roglic to put in such a ride. “We weren’t counting on a Primoz win at all,” he added. “He said that he was feeling stronger than ever, but we don’t know that much about Primoz at the moment, so nobody knew what that meant. We know now, and it makes it even more painful that he didn’t win. He delivered the time trial of his life, but doesn’t have the pink jersey.”

Jos van Emden, who was Team LottoNL-Jumbo’s main gun for the time trial, crashed. Engels added, “That was, without a doubt, the biggest setback of the day. Jos was doing well. He took a knock from this disappointment and has to recover from it.”

 “I slipped away in the turn,” said van Emden. “I came to this race to deliver a strong opening time trial, so you take risks to accomplish that. It went south in that corner. I felt good about the first part of my time trial, so I’m very fed up about the way it turned out. My Giro was about today.”

Van Emden only suffered scrapes due to the crash.

Time win

Steven Kruijswijk was the last Team LottoNL-Jumbo rider off and finished 22nd. “He did a strong job,” Engels continued. “He won time on most of his competitors for the general classification. It’s looking good for Steven.”

Protecting Kruijswijk remains the most important task for the team in the second stage between Arnhem and Nijmegen. “It would be nice if we’re able to be part of the early breakaway because the stage goes through Holland, but the main task is to come through this day with Steven. Moreno Hofland can go for the sprint afterwards.”