Jhonatan Narvaez thwarts Tadej Pogacar to win stage 1 of Giro d’Italia 2024

Ecuadorian Ineos rider Jhonatan Narvaez won a fierce battle in the opening stage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia on Saturday to deny pre-race favorite Tadej Pogacar in the final sprint and take the leader’s pink jersey.

Narvaez remained at the wheel of Pogacar and then rode clear in a three-way sprint after an eventful 140 kilometer stage to Turin, sending Max Schachmann and Pogacar to the line.

Ineos team leader and Geraint Thomas finished 10th, 10 seconds behind fellow contenders Ben O’Connor, Damiano Caruso and Danny Martinez.

However, fancied Frenchman Romain Bardet left 57 seconds behind, which doesn’t rule him out at this early stage but is far from ideal.

Narvaez was elated with the biggest win of his career.

“You don’t get many opportunities like that,” he said of taking the pink jersey.

After denying Pogacar an eighth victory in just eleven days of competitive racing this year, Narvaez said the Slovenian had made a mistake.

“He launched his sprint too early,” said Narvaez, who let Pogacar do all the work in his bid to become the first man to win the Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998. “After such a tough stage he went from about 200 meters, I waited for the 100 meters.”

UAE’s Pogacar left the peloton with just 3 kilometers to go, but Narvaez latched onto his rear wheel and overtook just 50 meters from the line, with Pogacar coming through in third place.

This year’s Giro gets off to a tough start with many climbs in the first two stages, putting the main contenders for overall victory straight into the mix.

There were plenty of fireworks on the opening day, as big names Bardet and Ineos’ Thymen Arensman were dropped from the back of the pack on the Category 2 Maddalena Pass climb towards the end of the race.

A six-man break built a lead of just over two minutes with 70 kilometers to go, and on the Superga climb, held to mark the 75th anniversary of an air disaster that killed the entire Torino football team came, one of the greatest Italian clubs sides in history.

That gap widened by a minute by the time Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier passed the summit of Superga, with Frenchman Lilian Calmejane joining the Eritrean on the descent.

The peloton, led for most of the day by Pogacar’s UAE teammates, halved that gap as they approached the Maddalena, a seven-kilometre climb with an average gradient of 7%.

Frenchman Calmejane claimed the King of the Mountains jersey on that climb, but was caught with 10 kilometers to go.

With the peloton behind, Pogacar made a run for the stage victory, but he could not ride completely clear and did not have the pace in the final to hold off Narvaez.

Sunday’s second stage is another big stage for the general classification contenders, as 161 kilometers of racing climaxes with a Category 1 climb to Santuario di Oropa.