Jonathan Milan explains false start in fraught Giro d'Italia opener

The opening stage was a relatively sedate affair until a fraught finale on twisting, narrow roads, where Milan lost contact with his Lidl-Trek lead-out train. Although he managed to fight his way back to the front of the race ahead of the sprint, the energy expended would prove costly in the final reckoning.

“We lost one another with 5km or so to go, I don’t even know how. It was a big casino,” Milan told reporters afterwards.

“I found myself a long way back and I had to ride alone up the outside on the right for a kilometre and a half, and I spent a lot of energy there.”

Milan’s teammate Max Walscheid unexpectedly found himself off the front with a small gap in the final kilometre, while lead-out man Simone Consonni was caught behind the mass crash with 300m to go.

Although Milan was on Magnier’s wheel as the Frenchman launched his winning effort, he was unable to get back on terms, and he confessed that he simply didn’t have the legs to compete for the win.

“I got back on the wheel of someone, I don’t even know who, but that rider didn’t launch their sprint,” Milan said. “By the time I made my move, it was too late, but above all, my legs were shot from the effort I’d put in earlier. The Soudal Quick-Step boys did great work, so congratulations to Magnier on his win.”

As he warmed down outside the Lidl-Trek bus, Milan acknowledged to RAI television that he had additional motivation to chase the first pink jersey of his career. This year, the maglia rosa is sponsored by his home region, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia.

“You don’t often have the chance on the first stage to take the pink jersey, and when the jersey has your home region’s name on it, well, it’s no small thing for me or for the team,” Milan told RAI.

The Italian is ten seconds off Magnier’s overall lead ahead of stage 2 to Veliko Tarnovo, though the rugged terrain in the finale might trouble the pure sprinters. 

Lidl-Trek manager Luca Guercilena, meanwhile, pointed to how the combination of increased speed and narrowing roads had led to a complicated finale for the sprint teams.

“There was quite a controlled speed in the early part of the stage but then it was difficult in the final kilometres, just when the roads were getting narrower,” Guercilena said on RAI’s Processo alla Tappa post-stage analysis show. “It’s very hard to get everything in order.”