Flat, fast, and with only a few technical sections, the Giro d’Italia’s opening time trial in Apeldoorn will be anything but favourable towards the out-and-out climbers who are contending for overall victory in Turin in three weeks time.
The opening stage begins inside the velodrome in Apeldoorn’s sports stadium, something riders in the Giro peloton like Leigh Howard (IAM Cycling), Michael Hepburn (Orica-GreenEdge), and Jack Bobridge (Trek-Segafredo) - the former Australia’s Omnium and Madison gold medallist and the latter two Team pursuit gold medallists in the World Track Championships held there in 2011 - will surely appreciate, if only for the good memories.
As much as track specialist Bradley Wiggins shone in the 2010 Giro prologue in Amsterdam, a rider with something of an endurance track past could well shine again on this equally flat 9.8 kilometre course in Apeldoorn.
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Even sprinter Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) is looking at the prologue course as an opportunity, describing the course as "super fast" and saying he'll "give it everything" on Friday to wear the first maglia rosa.
Having left the velodrome, the riders will wind their way around the front of the velodrome and make their way towards the main road via a scrappy-looking cycle path. There's a tight, narrow turn which will ensure riders will have to wait before they ramp their way up to full speed.
The remainder of the course - which Cyclingnews checked out in its entirety on Thursday - runs entirely through the large town of Apeldoorn. Hills just like in most of the Netherlands, are notable by their absence, with a whopping nine metre gain in altitude throughout.
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