Swiss rider Marlen Reusser, rebounding after losing a season to long Covid, powered to victory in the race-opening time-trial in the women's Giro in Bergamo on Sunday.
Reusser completed the flat 14.2-kilometre run in 17 minutes and 22 seconds, 12sec ahead of last year's Belgian runner-up Lotte Kopecky with Italian defending champion Elisa Longo Borghini a further 4sec behind.
At 33, Reusser has rediscovered her best form after a disastrous 2024 season.
She was second in Spanish Vuelta in May and has won two lesser stage races.
"Last spring I was ill for two weeks and just kept getting worse," Reusser said on the Giro web site.
"We couldn't figure out what was wrong. In June, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics, I tried getting back on the bike, but I had a fever that would spike one day and drop the next.
"In August, I was diagnosed with long Covid. I couldn't believe it and struggled to accept it.
"I was chronically ill. I was scared, because I know there are people who never recover from it".
On Monday, the riders will contest the first of the race's three mountain stages with a 92km run through the Alps from Clusone to Aprica.
The 'queen' stage runs up and down the Apennines on Saturday, before the eight-day race finishes in Imola the next day.