What could distract from an Italian in the pink jersey? EF Pro Cycling's duck kit almost managed it

It was the dream start for world time trial champion Filippo Ganna, the Italian who won the opening stage at the Giro d’Italia on Saturday.

Having powered to victory in the 15.1-kilometre time trial the Ineos Grenadiers rider was handed his first maglia rosa, the pink jersey worn by the race leader. Not a bad way to get your grand tour career under way.

Along with the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, the Giro’s elder and slightly more overbearing cousin, and the world champion's rainbow jersey, the maglia rosa is one of the most coveted of garments in cycling.

So evocative is it, just the thought of the maglia rosa can transport you elsewhere. Somewhere high above the cloud-line, where the air is thin and the snow waist deep. To the famous, and not so famous, climbs of northern Italy where the great race can be won, and occasionally lost.

Historians of the sport may be slingshot back to the sepia-tinged days when Italy was divided along socio-political and religious lines, gripped by the enduring battles between Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. Or perhaps having watched the quite wonderful The Stars and Water Carriers film, Eddy Merckx or Felice Gimondi in all their technicolour brilliance may be your heroes of choice? And then there’s Stephen Roche and that battle with team-mate Roberto Visentini, the year when the Irishman was unable to choose between the pink, yellow and rainbow bands, so took all three home. Everybody will hold dear their favourites.

How long Ganna holds the pink jersey remains to be seen. Sunday’s stage may prove too testing for the 24-year-old. Either way, he is not expected to win the Giro and so will treasure each moment he has the most symbolic jersey an Italian can wear on his broad shoulders.

While Gazzetta dello Sport will no doubt splash with Ganna, resplendent in his fresh new pink jersey, when their print edition hits the stands on Sunday, it is another jersey that has been making waves in Italy.

Switching from EF Pro Cycling's usual pink kit to avoid a clash with the maglia rosa, the collaboration between London-based brands Palace Skateboards and Rapha set tongues wagging upon its launch this week. Opinion was divided on Twitter — of course it was, this is social media in 2020 — though perhaps not as strongly as they were during the Coppi-Bartali rivalry.

What or who are Palace? Why is there a duck on it? Have the designers been dope tested? There were more questions than answers. "Quack.... Quack.... Quack.. Quack.. Quack! Quack! Quack!," tweeted Jonathan Vaughters, the colourful team principal at EF Pro Cycling. Love it or loath it, it was a marketing masterstroke. Everybody was talking, job done.

In an era when teams are increasingly turning to state-sponsored human rights abusers or producers of gas-guzzling 4x4s for their funding, it is refreshing to see a little fun in the sport. And long may it continue.