2010 Giro d'Italia, Stage 1 to Stage 11
Rider Team Time
1 Bradley Wiggins ( GBR ) Team Sky 10 ' 18
2 Brent Bookwalter ( USA ) BMC Racing Team + 2
3 Cadel Evans ( AUS ) BMC Racing Team + 2
4 Alexander Vinokourov ( KAZ ) Astana + 5
5 Greg Henderson ( NZL ) Team Sky + 5
6 Richie Porte ( AUS ) Team Saxo Bank + 5
7 David Millar ( GBR ) Garmin-Transitions + 6
8 Gustav Larsson ( SWE ) Team Saxo Bank + 7
9 Jos van Emden ( NED ) Rabobank + 9
10 Marco Pinotti ( ITA ) Team HTC-Columbia + 9
Stage 1
8 May 2010 — Amsterdam ( Netherlands ) , 8.4 km ( 5.2 mi ) ( individual time trial ) Bradley Wiggins riding the time trial The Giro opened with a short , flat time trial in Amsterdam , the ninth time that the Giro has begun outside Italy . There were a number of tight turns in the course , which began at the Museumplein and ended at the Olympic Stadium , making for a stage that favored time trial specialists . [ 2 ] Intermittent rain made the time trial difficult for various riders throughout the day . Astana 's Andriy Hryvko , the five-time defending Ukrainian national time trial champion , set the first real time to beat early on the day , clocking in at 10'31 '' . Hryvko was the 14th man to leave the starthouse , and his time held up until the 60th man , Team Saxo Bank 's Gustav Larsson , time trial silver medalist from the most recent world championships and Olympics , was six seconds better at 10'25 '' . An hour and a half later , the day 's biggest surprise came when Brent Bookwalter from Cadel Evans ' BMC Racing Team , riding in his first Grand Tour , put up 10'20 '' as the day 's new best time . The only man to do better on the day was Team Sky captain and time trial specialist Bradley Wiggins , stopping the clock in 10'18 '' to earn the first pink jersey . Of the Giro 's overall favorites , Evans finished best-placed , on the same time as Bookwalter for third place . [ 3 ] Stage 1 result and general classification after stage 1
The 2010 Giro d'Italia began on 8 May, and stage 11 occurred on 19 May. The race began in Amsterdam in the Netherlands with an individual time trial and two flat stages before transferring to Italy. The transfer made an uncommonly early rest day in a Grand Tour, coming just three days into the three-week race. Many crashes occurred in the stages in the Netherlands, leading to some unexpected big time gaps before the transfer to Italy. Three different riders led the race after the three days in the Netherlands. The first stage in Italy was a team time trial, the fifth successive year the discipline has featured in the Giro. This stage transferred the race lead to a fourth rider in as many stages, Vincenzo Nibali. Though many of the stages in the first half of the Giro were flat or undulating, and theoretically fairly straightforward, there were repeated large time gaps from day to day. The first mountain stage was stage 8, which concluded with a long climb to Monte Terminillo. Stage 11 was the longest in the race, and featured another surprise, a 50-strong breakaway which greatly shook up the overall standings before the more mountainous second half of the Giro. Alexander Vinokourov had held the race lead prior to that stage, but lost it to Richie Porte, who figured into the winning break.