There is a very specific type of psychological warfare that elite cyclists deploy when they want to completely demoralize their rivals. It usually involves crushing everyone’s hopes and dreams on the road, and then casually complaining to the press about having a bad day.
Filippo Ganna gave us a masterclass in this exact tactic on Monday afternoon in Lido di Camaiore.
The Italian powerhouse stomped his way through the opening 11.5-kilometer time trial of Tirreno-Adriatico, stopping the clock at a blistering 12 minutes and eight seconds. To put that into perspective, he beat his own teammate, Thymen Arensman, by a massive 22 seconds. In an 11-kilometer race, putting two seconds per kilometer into the second-place finisher is an act of aerodynamic violence.
And what did Ganna have to say about this absolute dismantling of the WorldTour peloton?
“Today in the middle of the stage I didn’t feel good,” he told the cameras. Sure, Filippo. If putting out enough wattage to power a small Tuscan village constitutes not feeling good, the rest of the peloton should probably just pack their bags and head home right now.
The INEOS Steamroller
This wasn’t just a Ganna victory; it was an INEOS Grenadiers hostile takeover of the leaderboard. Arensman happily kept the hot seat warm for his Italian teammate, taking a massive chunk of time out of his GC rivals on day one. Young American Magnus Sheffield was only four-tenths of a second away from making it a clean 1-2-3 sweep for the British squad, ultimately settling for fourth and pulling on the white young rider’s jersey.
The Classics Warm-Up
Ganna, currently sitting in the overall race lead, insists he has absolutely no ambitions for the General Classification. According to the INEOS PR machine, he’s just here to “have the feeling for the Classics.”
It’s a terrifying prospect for anyone planning to line up at Milan-San Remo or Paris-Roubaix later this spring. If this is Ganna just stretching his legs and finding his rhythm while actively feeling bad, the Classics specialists are in for a miserable few months. The big man is rolling, and the rest of the peloton is already out of breath trying to catch his slipstream.
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