Giro d’Italia: Josh Tarling edges out Roglic for time-trial victory in Tirana

Josh Tarling of Ineos Grenadiers set a time-trial pace even the race favourite, Primoz Roglic, could not match to win stage two of the Giro d’Italia by one second in Albania on Saturday. Tarling had a nervous wait before his first Grand Tour stage victory was confirmed as the 21-year-old Welshman watched Roglic come so close, but the Slovene had to settle for second place with the consolation of taking over the leader’s pink jersey for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

Jay Vine of UAE Team Emirates came third, the Australian finishing three seconds behind Tarling in the short 13.7km individual time-trial in Tirana. “To win is definitely exceptional,” Tarling said. In his second Grand Tour after failed to finish last year’s Vuelta A Espana Tarling became the youngest rider to win a Giro time-trial.

Primoz Roglic passes a mural in Tirana but the Sloven had to settle for second place and the leader’s maglia rosa. Photograph: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images

Vine crashed on Friday’s opening stage, but took the lead from Edoardo Affini before Tarling showed his time-trial prowess. He came third in the 2023 world road time-trial and racing his first Giro had to sit and watch as the main contenders attempted to steal the win.

“Waiting for the other riders to complete the course was hard too, I don’t want to do it again,” he said. “It was long. I was afraid of everyone among the favourites.”

All eyes were on Roglic, the 2023 winner, and with the reigning champion, Tadej Pogacar, deciding to focus on the Tour de France, the 35-year-old Slovenian is expected to become the oldest Giro winner. Roglic, however, fell short, and Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) was well off the pace early in his ride. Van Aert beat Tarling to the bronze medal at last year’s Olympic Games.

Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), who won the opening stage on Friday, was last to go and despite pushing hard to the end, the Dane finished 12 seconds down in seventh place and lost the overall lead to Roglic by one second. Sunday’s stage three is the last time the riders will tackle the Albanian roads with a 160km ride that starts and finishes in Vlore.

Friday’s opening was marred by Mikel Landa’s crash late on and the Basque and Geoffrey Bouchard suffered broken backs in the incident. Landa fractured a vertebra in his lower back, his Soudal-QuickStep team said, while on Saturday morning Decathlon revealed that Bouchard, who has also quit the Giro, had fractured his collarbone and had multiple fractures in his back.