British 21-year-old Josh Tarling delivered a career-high victory on stage two of the Giro d’Italia, winning the individual time-trial by one second from overall favourite Primoz Roglic.
Tarling spent an hour in the hot seat watching as others tried and failed to knock the Ineos Grenadiers rider off spot. Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) just missed out but earned the mighty consolation of the pink jersey after taking the overall race lead from stage-one winner Mads Pedersen (Lidl–Trek) by one second.
Australian Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) came third on the stage, three second behind Tarling in the short 13.7km route in Tirana, Albania.
“I can’t believe it to be honest,” said Tarling after being told he was the youngest ever winner of a Giro time-trial. “I’m so happy. [The wait] was not nice, I don’t want to do it again. A long day for 13km!
“You had Wout [Van Aert], Mads, Primoz really scared me, so it was a stressful day. We did the first part smooth and controlled, with the climb nice and hard. Then the last section I thought was harder than we reconned, so I made sure to hurt in the second to last section.”
The Giro remains in Albania for Sunday’s third stage. The hilly 160km (99-mile) leg starts and finishes in the coastal city of Vlore, which is directly across the Adriatic from the Italian region of Puglia, where the race will resume on Tuesday after a rest day.
The race ends in Rome on 1 June.
