Filippo Ganna more than lived up to his overwhelming status as favourite on Tirreno-Adriatico's stage 1 time trial as he clinched the victory by a whopping 22 seconds over Ineos Grenadiers teammate Thymen Arensman and 26 seconds on Max Walscheid (Lidl-Trek)The winner of three of the last four opening time trials in Tirreno, including on last year's identical 11.5km course at Lido di Camaiore, Ganna was already three seconds faster than teammate Magnus Sheffield at the mid-stage split.The Italian then opened up the throttle even more on the return half of the course along the Camaiore seafront to claim his second victory of the season as well as the first leader's jersey of the race.Amongst the general classification favourites, Arensman delivered the most impressive ride whilst former Tirreno winner Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was just nine seconds slower in seventh place. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) was next in the unofficial GC pecking order, two seconds slower, while Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) rounded out the stage's top ten, 36 seconds down on Ganna.Having clinched a considerably bigger advantage on his closest rival than his 0.22-second gap on runner-up and 2025 overall winner Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) last year, not to mention breaking the record for the 11.5-kilometre course with an mindboggling average speed of 56.225kmh, Ganna was logically extremely pleased with his performance."I'm very happy," the current Italian National Time Trial Champion said. "Like I said yesterday" – in the favourites' press conference – "I don't want to push the legs too much when my big goals of this part of the year [the Classics] are still in a few weeks time."At the moment, I'm really happy, the shape is good. My feelings weren't the best, but Thymen and Magnus" – who made it three of the top four finishers for Ineos – "did amazingly well, too. It was great for the team."For sure, I don't want to lose the leader's jersey, I'll fight for it and maybe try to win another stage. But it's not easy, so I'll support the team as well and see what I can do."
