Reigning champion Tom Dumoulin hailed a “perfect” display as he laid down a marker to main rival Chris Froome by winning the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia in Jerusalem on Friday.
Dutchman Dumoulin edged out Australian Rohan Dennis by just two seconds in the 9.7km time trial as Froome struggled following a crash in morning training, finishing 21st and losing 37 seconds.
Froome’s buildup to his attempt to become only the third man in history to hold all three Grand Tour titles at once — he won the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana last year — had already been compromised by a scandal over an adverse doping test reading in September last year.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The 32-year-old returned a urine sample with elevated levels of salbutamol and spent much of his pre-race news conference on Wednesday answering questions about whether he should even be racing at the Giro.
Froome failed to find top form over the past few months, although he finished a credible fourth at the Tour of the Alps last month.
However, in previous years he has almost always won at least one week-long stage race in the lead-up to his major Grand Tour objective of the season.
His difficulties mounted on Friday morning, as he was one of several riders to hit the ground on a training ride, suffering cuts and abrasions and ripping his skin suit down the right side.
A video of his crash shared on Instagram showed that he hit the tarmac pretty hard.
Even so, few could have expected such a modest showing in a discipline in which he normally excels.
He was already well down at about 50th place at the intermediate time check just more than 5km into the stage.
Although he improved over the second half, he even finished behind slight climbers such as fellow Briton Simon Yates (seventh at 20 seconds), Italian Domenico Pozzovivo (10th at 27 seconds) and Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (16th at 33 seconds).
Normally, Froome would have expected to gain significant time on those three.
“I’m not relying on [time trials] to try and win this Giro with Tom here,” Froome said.
Dumoulin, 27, had no such troubles as he took to the course as the last of 175 riders, wearing the rainbow jersey of world time-trial champion.
“I knew I felt good in the last days. It was perfect,” said the Sunweb rider, who won his fourth Giro stage and is the first reigning champion in 12 years to also claim the opening stage of the following edition.
“This is all I wished for, the win and a lot of time on other GC [general classification] riders, so it was a perfect start for me and a perfect start for the team,” he added.
However, Dumoulin is not sure he will hold onto the pink jersey all the way to the business end of the race.
“We will see, we were not planning on defending it every day. The Giro is still very long,” he said. “It’s nice to have it today, but it’s hard to keep it for the whole three weeks, so we will see what we will do.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but