Pogacar denied on first day

Ecuadorian cyclist Jhonatan Narvaez marred Tadej Pogacar’s Giro d’Italia debut as he edged the Slovenian to victory in yesterday’s opening stage.

Narvaez took the leader’s pink jersey that Pogacar is heavily favoured to be wearing when the race ends in Rome in three weeks.

Rarely has the Giro had such an overwhelming pre-race favourite as Pogacar, with the two-time Tour de France winner targeting an audacious Giro-Tour double.

Pogacar had never competed in the Italian grand tour before and he was hoping to ride into pink right from the start but Narvaez beat him and Max Schachmann in a sprint between the three riders at the end of the 140km route from Venaria Reale to Turin. Schachmann also edged out Pogacar.

“Following the best guy in the world on the climb was really hard, so it’s a special victory,” Narvaez said. “It’s still hurting me now. It was really really hard. But in the end, I make it. I think he [Pogacar] went too long in the sprint, 200m after a really hard stage, and I did a short sprint, and in the end, I took the victory.”

Narvaez was swiftly embraced by Ineos Grenadiers teammate Geraint Thomas, last year’s runner-up, who is likely to be Pogacar’s main challenger.

Thomas and most of the other GC contenders finished within 10 seconds of the leading trio. But there was disappointment for another Ineos Grenadiers rider in Thymen Arensman as he finished more than two minutes behind Narvaez.

Romain Bardet and Luke Plapp also both lost more than a minute after all three were dropped on the second-category Colle Maddalena. They were expected to be among the challengers for a podium finish.

There was a special pink jersey as the stage commemorated the 1949 Superga air disaster involving the Torino football team.

The maglia rosa had the words “Solo il Fato li vinse”, or “Only Fate defeated them,” written on the inside of the collar, in Torino’s colours.

The opening leg went over the Superga hill where the Torino team’s plane crashed, to mark the 75th anniversary of the tragedy. All 31 people on board the plane died.

As well as the Superga climb, there were two other categorised climbs plus two rides up a steep but uncategorised ascent as the Giro got off to an unusually difficult start.