Giro d’Italia 2018: Tom Dumoulin snatches stage one time trial victory as Chris Froome loses bumpy ground

Dumoulin narrowly edged out the Australian Rohan Dennis and Belgian Victor Campenaerts by two seconds with a time 12min 02sec over the 9.7km course

Tom Dumoulin celebrates his stage one victory in Jerusalem (Getty Images)

First blood to Tom Dumoulin. Quite literally in his rivalry with Chris Froome, who fell hard and scraped across the road during a morning reconnaissance of this Giro d’Italia stage one time trial in Jerusalem, ripping his skinsuit to reveal nasty grazes beneath. Seemingly affected, Froome gave up a significant 37 seconds to Dumoulin, the reigning Giro champion, as the Dutch rider staked an early claim on the famous pink jersey.

Dumoulin narrowly edged out the Australian Rohan Dennis and Belgian Victor Campenaerts by two seconds with a time 12min 02sec over the 9.7km course, Portugal’s Jose Goncalves finished fourth, and Britain’s Alex Dowsett and Simon Yates both impressed with top-10 finishes.

Froome, however, was one of several general classification contender to lose ground. Thibaut Pinot was 30 seconds off the pace, Astana’s Fabio Aru was 50 seconds back, while Miguel Angel Lopez – who also suffered a pre-race crash – was almost a full minute down. There is a long, long way to go, across Israel, Sicily and the Italian mainland to Rome on 27 May, but they are sizeable gaps less than 10km into a 3,563km race.

“I had been feeling good lately and today I took time off of my rivals, that’s all I wanted,” said Dumoulin. “It was a very challenging, very technical course but for me it was OK. If you crash in the recon, it doesn’t make you very confident for the real race so definitely he (Froome) lost a bit more time in his performance than he would normally do and it was very unfortunate for him. I didn’t expect to take so much time off him.”

This was a historic day for cycling, the first time a Grand Tour had ventured outside Europe, and the local people embraced what is the biggest sporting event the country has ever hosted. Up to a quarter of Israel’s entire population is predicted to line the streets at some point over the three stages, and they were out in force on Friday to welcome the peloton.

Froome’s day got off an inauspicious start when the Briton crashed while scouting out the stage. He suffered cuts and grazes on his right side and a bloodied knee, and was seen hobbling gingerly back to his saddle, but it wasn’t serious enough to prevent him taking part in the time trial.

He was one of the lucky ones. The Bahrain-Merida rider Kanstantsin Siutsou was forced to abandon the race before it began after breaking his collarbone in a similar crash. Earlier this week the billionaire backer behind the Giro, Sylvan Adams, told The Independent that organisers had been impressed by Israel’s “very nice roads” but here an inquisition quickly ramped up.

American Dimension Data rider Ben King tweeted: “Done previewing the #giro101 TT course in Jerusalem. It’s pretty complicated with bumpy off camber corners at high speed. Already three riders, including Chris Froome, have crashed and the race hasn’t started yet... ghost holes.”

However, caution took hold and the pre-race problems didn’t surface during the time trial. The first of the day’s leading contenders to slide down the infinity shaped bright pink ramp into a pool of delirious fans was Dennis, and the BMC rider gradually upped his pace over the undulating route to set the early standard with a time of 12min 04sec.

Only the European time trial champion Campaenaerts could match him, before the big hitters arrived. Of the supreme climbers it was Froome with the richest history in time trials, but he crossed the line 35 seconds down, in 19th, eventually finishing 21st.

That left Dumoulin, who emerged last down the start ramp wearing the world champion’s rainbow colours, to enjoy his moment as he glided through the more technical first half of the course and crunched across the faster second half, sprinting over the line with his head dipped determinedly. He will wear the maglia rosa in stage two, and has made the first play towards wearing the same colours in Rome in three weeks’ time.