The American Slipstream-Chipotle team won the first stage of the Giro d'Italia yesterday, with Christian Vandevelde crossing first in the 14.7-mile team time trial in Palermo, Italy, to take the leader's pink jersey.
Five Slipstream riders – the minimum in the team event – remained together at the finish, with Vandevelde a bike length ahead of U.S. time trial champion Dave Zabriskie. They stopped the clock at 26 minutes, 32 seconds. Team CSC finished 6 seconds slower in second place, and High Road was third, 7 seconds back.
Vandevelde is the first American to wear the maglia rosa at the Giro since Andy Hampsten won two stages in 1988 on his way to becoming the Italian tour's only American winner.
“This is amazing,” Vandevelde, 31, told cyclingnews.com. “I don't really think about being the first American in pink in 20 years, I think more about how much of a big coup it was for myself and the team.
“We came here with one objective and one objective only, and that was to win today. We did that. It is a pretty unreal thing to do, especially when you are a second-division team and in your first year of really getting together. We are over the moon.”
LPR Brakes, the team of defending champion Danilo Di Luca, was 28 seconds off the lead in sixth.
The Astana team, which has two of the prerace favorites in Tour de France champion Alberto Contador and Andreas Klöden, plus Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer, finished 1 second behind LPR.
