A young man and his pink jersey, united at last

Taylor Phinney is a one time U23 World time-trial champion so it didn't come with much surprise yesterday to learn that he had won the prologue of the Giro d'Italia up in Denmark. What did come as a surprise however was the unrelenting love he has for the maliga rosa. "I've had it as the screen saver on my computer and on my phone for the last few months," he boasted like an... err... schoolboy in love. Wait... "I have like a school-boy crush on the jersey."

The American cyclist who informed the press pack that he lives in Tuscany, speaks Italian and "went to middle school in Italy" completed the 8.7 km course in a staggering 10min 26sec beating his nearest competition, Britain's Geraint Thomas of Sky by 9sec. This result would be all well and good for the Italians I suppose if it was actually in Italy, but they started the race in Denmark and as a result everyone went home disappointed as home hero, Alex Rasmussen could only manage a third place finish 13 seconds back.

Once the race was over and won and all the champaign used up, Phinney revealed his cunning plan. "We pre-rode the course 10 times over the last couple of days, but it was important to get on the course today before the race because of the way they set up the barriers was a little bit different," he said. "It's a good course for me and I just went out there and gave it everything I've got," he continued as opposed to demoralising his rivals by telling them that he rode it easy, saving his energy for later races. "There was only one corner that I felt like I could have done a little better." Indeed, imagine the time had he perfected the course?

Favourites such as Ryder Hesjedal (@ 29"), Roman Kreuziger (@ 36") and Ivan Basso (@ 39") all lost a bit of time to Phinney but not enough to worry about. They did however put decent time into others expected to compete with them for Taylor Phinney's maliga rosa come Milan. Frank Schleck was 108th on the day 59 seconds behind Phinney, Damiano Cunego was 124th, 1-03 back, and Michele Scarponi, 135th at 1-06. That's about thirty seconds lost by the trio in just 8.7 kms, and given stage 4 is a 32.2 km team time trial they had better hope their teams are up to the task or they could be losing more time long before any of the roads start to point upwards.

Phinney got modest when it came to winning the Giro claiming he would be just happy to keep it through tomorrow. "We will see, I hope to keep it even tomorrow. The stage in Verona is very important," he said talking of the team-time-trial. "I'll take this jersey day by day".