Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 2 LIVE - Josh Tarling with the time to beat, as Van Aert prepares his hunt for the maglia rosa

Usually you'd make him a contender but after yesterday's late crash it's pleasing to see him even start. The strapping on his knee suggests a more difficult night than he'd have wanted.

1. Edoardo Affini 16' 13''

2. Daan Houle +00'02"

3. Ethan Hayter +00'08''

4. Jan Tratnik +00'12''

5. Josef Cerny +00'15''

The Aussie TT champion rolls away and wastes no time of settling into the bars and tucking in. He's determined to get something out of this one.

Affini can breathe easy. It was close - the Lidl-Trek rider finishes just two seconds down, and it seems to have been the long straight that did for him. Power ultimately prevailed.

And he's arguably a better bike handler than Affini. This could be very close.

He goes eight seconds quicker than Hayter. Strong ride from the Italian.

No margin for error for the Czech rider as he takes every corner as tightly and as fast as he can.

Eleven seconds quicker than Hayter.

The European champion is the first of the named favourites, but you'd now have to include Hayter in that. Big gear for Affini - a 60 tooth chainring.

He sails past the Arkea rider ahead of him with 4km left to ride.

What a redundant stat that is.

He has 14 seconds in hand at the straight but it's a long long road and he crosses the line four seconds down. He was 7 seconds up at the split but clearly went out a bit hard.

They cross the line practically together, putting the Soudal-Deceuninck rider into the lead by a massive 2'12. That should hold up for a while. It's easy to forget (or at least I had) that he came 4th in the Wollongong worlds in 2022.

That's pretty impressive after being in the saddle for less than ten minutes. The hot seat beckons.

You may have seen this yesterday, but can the hivemind beat the TNT Sports experts?

The south Londoner, graduate of the Herne Hill finishing school of course, is riding his first Grand Tour since the 2022 Vuelta a Espana.

Probably a bit too early to call him the maglia negra, but he is officially the last placed rider in general classification. The German rider has the honour of a clear run at the Tirana course.

As tends to be the case, but isn’t always this early in a stage race, we’re down the ramp in reverse general classification order. 

That means first up is Niklas Märkl of Team Picnic PostNL at 12:25.

Other starts to watch out for include: 

13:07 - Edoardo Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike) 

13:56 - Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates)

14:28 - Joshua Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers)

14:58 - Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates)

15:00 - Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates)

15:05 - Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek)

15:14 - Primož Roglic (Red Bull-Biora Hansgrohe)

15:23 - Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious)

15:53 - Wout Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)

15:56 - Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)

It had to be Mads.

By my measure the organisers have managed to fit eleven turns of 80 degrees or more into the 13.7km course. Efficient.

Three of those are 180 degree hairpins making it even more technical, and which should bring the average speed below that which you’d expect from a ride of this distance.