Santos is the first in the circuit. He has a chance at a decent result. In any case, he gets the first time: 4’32. He’s quickly followed by the first prologue specialist though, in Stash. The Russian easily takes the hot seat: 4’25 is the new best time. Mavrikakis, who can hope for a minor GC place, is 13’’ off: 4’38. He then loses two more seconds, when Howson takes the hot seat with a new best time, and a very good ride: 4’23. And then, we have the first real favorite: Yatsevich. He and his management will be disappointed: 4’29, that’s already 6 seconds lost on the best time. It’s a different situation for Groselj, who overperforms to finish some milliseconds behind Stash, good enough for 3rd for now.
And same impression for Soler! We knew he was a solid prologue rider, but now he’s only one second behind Howson, and virtual 2nd.
Tanfield (+0’03) and Keough (+0’04) are not quite as good.
Quintana is one of the first GC leader on the road. Though he’s a decent time-trialist, 14 seconds off is maybe not a great start.

[The intermediate rankings have been lost by our reporter.]

The first rider of note in this batch is Rikunov, one of Tinkoff options in the mountains. He does better than his teammate Vlasov: +0’03 is good enough for virtual 7th.
Pluchkin isn’t the leader he once was, but he still rides in his shiny Moldavian NC jersey. He finishes 10’’ slower than Howson, who still holds the hot seat. Croes also has a nice jersey, but like Pluchkin, it doesn’t give him enough speed to get a good result (+0’08).
Then comes ELCO’s leader Giannoutsos. 9Th (+0’04) will be satisfying for now. Prado, in the other hand, should be one of Barguil main helpers in the mountains. But he’s also a good prologue rider, and that shows as he only loses 2 seconds on the hot seat. Shikai (+0’07) doesn’t have bad ride, but will lose some seconds to some rivals.
Then comes Leung and he’s flying! But not fast enough: he finishes in the same time as Howson, but behind him for now.

[The intermediate rankings have been lost by our reporter.]

Hansen already comes in as a prologue specialist. He finishes 1 second behind Howson and Leung. He’s closely followed by Hepburn… who’s also 1 second off!
Formolo is next, and he’s by no mean a prologue specialist, but he surely doesn’t want to lose too much time the first day. 34Th, +0’09 isn’t too bad. But the public’s attention already has shifted: Chavanne is on the road… and he smashes everything! 4’21 for the Swiss rider. The dust hasn’t settled yet, but
Beltran already finsihed and lost 19 seconds. Johannessen loses even more: he’s 22 seconds slower than Chavanne.
Kalaba probably is here for the sprints. Still, he might be disappointed with 7 seconds lost (provisional 19th).
Another story for Cataford! The Canadian only is 1 second slower than Chavanne.
After this alert, the Swiss can rest a bit in the hot seat, at least until two riders enter the fray: Fraile and Andersen. Though the Spanish rider is no threat (+0’05), Andersen doesn’t disappoint: 4’20, he takes the lead for one second!
The Belgian champion, Campenaerts, won’t retake the hot seat for MOL. He’s 5’’ off.

[The intermediate rankings have been lost by our reporter.]

The last batch begins with the Georgian champion Akhmaevi. No miracle for him: +0’12. Larsen, on the other hand, is one of the best prologue riders. He finishes right behind Chavanne and Andersen (+0’02).
In this batch, we’ll also have most of the big guns for the mountains: Kirsch, for EA Vesuvio, loses 17 seconds. Not the best result for a good finish. Eenkhoorn does better for Evonik (+0’09), but Pinot loses much time (+0’25).
Powless lives up to his skillset: +0’04 is a good result, good enough for virtual 8th.
Though Aker – MOT will probably be happy to take the win today – which should be done now, they’ll be less thrilled by Amezawa’s result: he’s 35 seconds of the pace. Same for MOL, though Almeida only loses 12 seconds. Same time for Galta.
Pogacar does better (+0’07), a good step into leading the young rider classification. Same for Cattaneo – on the other end of the carrier spectrum (+0’06).
Barguil finishes behind Almeida and Galta (+0’16). Tenorio is with Pogacar (+0’07).
Latour (+0’10), Wellens (+0’12), Haig (+0’09) and Morton (+0’14) all have decent results.
Not quite so for Dombrowski (+0’17).
Kudus is the last to go. +0’13 is not too much lost on his rivals, and even better than Dombrowski!