Mathieu van Poel retains Giro lead as Simon Yates wins stage 2

Simon Yates took victory in the Giro d’Italia stage two time trial around Budapest.

The English Team BikeExchange-Jayco rider finished the 9.2kilometres course in 11 minutes and 50 seconds, with stage one winner Mathieu van der Poel three seconds behind.

Dutchman Tom Dumoulin was third for Team Jumbo–Visma, five seconds off the pace, with Yates’ team-mate Matteo Sobrero in fourth.

American time trial champion Lawson Craddock and Lucas Hamilton had both been in the mix early on around the Hungarian capital.

Lennard Kamna then set down a long-standing mark before Italy’s time trial champion Sobrero took over the leaderboard when he clocked 12mins 3secs.

Dumoulin then lowered the pace to under 12 minutes, but it was Yates who finished on top after setting the quickest intermediate split over the flat section and impressing on the climb to the finish line.

It was a fifth Giro d’Italia stage win for 29-year-old Yates, who is aiming to have a major say in the overall classification standings, where he is now 11 seconds behind Van der Poel who retains the pink jersey.

"I just tried to go as fast as possible. We put a lot of work into our equipment this year and, of course, it’s paying off," Yates said.

"I was never confident, Van der Poel was close as well, but you always have that belief that you can win and eventually I managed to hang on.

"Today was a 12-minute effort, we still have some much more demanding stages in front of us.

"It is one of only two time trials I have ever won and my first ever in a Grand Tour so we will enjoy today, but I think we need to look at the bigger picture."

The third and final stage to take place in Hungary will run over a flat 201km from Kaposvar to Balatonfured with just one categorised climb.