(Reuters) – American Brandon McNulty won a thrilling opening stage time trial at the Vuelta a Espana by two seconds on Saturday.
The flat 12km blast around Lisbon was won by UAE Team Emirates rider McNulty in 12 minutes 35 seconds with Czech Mathias Vacek second in 12:37.
Italian early starter Edoardo Affino had led for a long time but ended up fifth, eight seconds down.
Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Team Visma-Lease A Bike) looked like topping the time sheets but had to settle for third in the standings, three seconds behind McNulty.
Defending champion Sepp Kuss finished 53 seconds behind, losing time to other general classification favourites including three-times winner Primoz Roglic who was eighth — 17 seconds slower than McNulty.
McNulty will get to wear the red jersey in Sunday’s hilly 194km second stage from Cascais to Ourem.
“I don’t know if I expected to win. I knew if something crazy happened I could, so I guess something crazy happened,” McNulty, who could be a GC threat, said.
“I was hoping for it, but this is hard to believe for me. I had super good legs, and I’ve been feeling really good in training.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)
