Walscheid powers to 8th in strong Team Qhubeka ASSOS showing on stage 1 of the Giro d'Italia

Turin, 8 May 2021 - Max Walscheid delivered a superb performance on the opening stage of the 104th Giro d'Italia to finish in 8th place, and lay down a marker for Team Qhubeka ASSOS' ambitions at the 2021 event.

Walscheid's performance, in which he finished 19 seconds behind eventual stage-winner Filippo Ganna (IGD), was the highlight of an excellent outing for the team, who placed 5th overall in the team competition on the opening day.

The short 8.6km course through Turin saw plenty of power laid down by the peloton and ultimately it was the dominance of Ganna, the world champion, who ran out a comfortable winner by 10 seconds ahead of Edoardo Affini (TJV).

Domenico Pozzovivo also impressed as he rode to an excellent 21st place, closely followed by Victor Campenaerts, who opted to take the day's opening slot for our team. The Belgian was the third man off the start ramp and briefly held the day's leading time before being usurped by Roger Kluge.

In addition, prior to the start of the individual time trial the the World Hour Record holder, Campenaerts, conducted his pre-race routine on the Zwift platform, an engagement which saw excited fans able to share their daily own ride with the Belgian.

A successful day for the team was completed by Mauro Schmid, Kilian Frankiny, Giacomo Nizzolo, Lukasz Wisnowski and Bert-Jane Lindeman all delivering strong performances that bode well, as the team looks ahead to its ambitions in stage two of the race on Sunday and beyond.

Max Walscheid

First day, first top-10!

I'm super happy with finishing off some very good weeks of work in which the team have supported me in getting the best out of myself; the physical performance and also the optimisation of the materials. I'm just super happy that it paid off.

I think that there's a lot left in the tank and I'm looking forward to all the coming TT performances as well as the road stages; the shape is not too bad!