Silva springs the biggest surprise of his career — who is the Giro's new race leader?

Guillermo Thomas Silva Coussan — had you ever heard of him before stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia? The 24-year-old Uruguayan has been part of the peloton for a while now and is far from unknown, but even he did not see Saturday's stage victory coming. And to go with it, he picked up the maglia rosa.

Silva made the move last winter from the ProTeam Caja Rural to WorldTour squad XDS Astana. Until 1 August 2023 he had been racing at club level, but as a stagiaire at Caja Rural he made enough of an impression to earn a contract. In 2024 he was already making cautious appearances in sprint finales at O Gran Camiño and the Itzulia Basque Country.

The look on Silva's face as he crossed the finish line on Saturday said everything. Pure disbelief was written all over it as he rolled across the line ahead of Florian Stork (Tudor) and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek). With pink jersey holder Paul Magnier already dropped, Silva also inherited the race lead.

"I'm delighted. This is only the second stage of my first Giro d'Italia, and I'm the winner. It was a bit unexpected. I'm speechless," Silva said after the stage. "I knew I came with a good shape, but I also knew that it's very hard to win a stage of a Grand Tour. Having won in the first few days will give us a lot of serenity."

How did he win? Primarily because Jonas Vingegaard found himself in a trio of riders playing a tactical game and the three of them failed to hold off the chase. Silva was part of the group that came back across, and he even had a lead-out to the line. "I've ridden at the front thanks to Christian Scaroni, who was very active. As for myself, I just had to keep calm and launch the sprint at the right time to conquer a huge win for myself. For myself, this is the maximum I could hope for."