American Christian Vande Velde is in the maglia rosa after his team, Slipstream-Chipotle, won the team time trial in impressive fashion Saturday in the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia. 

Vande Velde led the five surviving argyle-clad Slipstream-Chipotle riders across the finishing line in 26 minutes 32 seconds for an average speed of 33.16 miles per hour for the 14.66 mile TTT.

Slipstream-Chipotle, which won the TTT at Road Atlanta in the Tour de Georgia last month, burned through three of its nine members in the first part of the TTT — with Danny Pate, Pat McCarty and Chris Sutton doing big pulls at the front before dropping off. Their sacrifice saved the remaining six time trial specialists — Vande Velde, U.S. time trial champ David Zabriskie, Canadian champ Ryder Hesjedal, British champ David Millar, former Swedish champ Big Magnus Backstedt and Julian Dean — for the big finish.

An indication of Slipstream’s speed was that Millar, one of the best time trialists in the world, lost contact in the last kilometer, leaving Slipstream with the minimum five finishers.

“What a great day!” team director sportif Jonathan Vaughters stated on Slipstream’s Twitter site. 

The opening stage TTT win at the Giro is huge win for the team, an American continental team with UCI Pro Tour aspirations. This is the team’s first appearance in a grand tour, a prelude to its first Tour de France in July.

“It was an interesting process selecting the team for the Giro. Balancing our needs for a good Tour (de France), but yet kick butt in Italy,” Vaughters stated on Twitter.

U.S.-sponsored CSC, the top TTT squad in the world the past few years, finished second, six seconds in arrears of Slipstream-Chipotle. U.S.-based High Road, riding the Giro without team captain Big George Hincapie, placed third, just seven seconds back. Astana finished seventh, 27 seconds back.

Astana is led by former U.S. Postal Service/Discovery Channel boss Johan Bruyneel, who led those teams to big TTT victories in the Lance Armstrong era.

Vande Velde told Velonews.com that Slipstream-Chipotle’s opening day in a grand tour was reminiescent of the U.S. Postal Service’s debut in the 1999 Tour de France en route to the first of Armstrong’s seven titles.

“We’re a smaller team and this is our first year in the big leagues, so this is huge,” Velonews.com quoted Vande Velde as saying. “It’s very similar (to 1999). Then we were the underdogs. We only had 15 guys on Postal Service. We didn’t even have a bus, just two campers. Lance just killed everyone in the prologue. We couldn’t believe it. My roommate then was Jonathan Vaughters, so it’s funny how things have come full circle. My objective isn’t to win the Giro, but it’s very similar.”

Vande Velde’s appearance atop the podium marks the first time an American has worn the maglia rosa in 20 years, since Andy Hampsten reigned as the first and only American Giro winner in 1988.

–30–