The first road race of a Grand Tour is typically a nervous affair, and Sunday’s 177-kilometer second stage was no exception with a jittery peloton negotiating the final kilometers.

As the pace and nerves heated a large crash split the peloton with 11 kilometers to go and eliminated a few fast legs. Giacomo Nizzolo successfully avoided the melee, but one of the team’s key lead-out men, Marco Coledan, was an unfortunate victim. Coledan was able to continue, albeit with added scrapes and bruises he will need to nurse over the next days, never a fun way to begin a three-week race.

Marco Coledan loads up with bottles.

Trek Factory Racing played its cool in the frenzied finale, leading Giacomo Nizzolo to third wheel inside the final half kilometer. The positioning for a flat run-in was picture-perfect, however, the ending of today’s stage had a nasty rise to the line. Forced to begin his sprint from the front, Nizzolo could muster no better than sixth place; needless to say, a disheartening finish for the Italian speedster.

Giacomo Nizzolo was in good hands all day.

“Today I didn’t feel so good, my allergies got to me and I had difficulty to breathe,”explained a disappointed Nizzolo.”But in the end we were there. Of course, it was a sprint to take from behind to make the best result, but as the situation happened we found ourselves in the front and we had no choice but to go full on. If I look at all the guys who started the sprint at the same time as me, we were all close. And the guys who are on the podium, they started from behind so…I can say that it was not the best day, but now we need to look forward.”

Timing was crucial in the tricky finale and Elia Viviani (Sky) played the sprint flawlessly. He timed his move to match the uphill rise and blasted by the leaders to take the opening sprint stage of the 2015 Giro d’Italia. 

Orica GreenEdge successfully defended the jersey, although it changed shoulders as Michael Matthews will have the honor of wearing the esteemed maglia rosa tomorrow.

Trek Factory Racing arrived at this year’s Giro d’Italia with its sight set on stage victories, but a secondary goal played out on the road into today’s first road race. Despite a five-man breakaway gobbling up the top points offered in the two intermediate sprints, the placings went 10 deep.

Trek Factory Racing lined up the troops to help Nizzolo nab a few points, but at stage end both director Adriano Baffi and Nizzolo questioned the amount of energy spent for the minor placings.

“We are also looking for the red [points] jersey, and perhaps we need to manage this situation a bit better so that we are more concentrated for the finale, and not too much for the intermediate sprints. Maybe when it’s an easy point to take, we can go for it. The Giro is long, and points jersey won’t be won on the first stage," Nizzolo said.

“Maybe we can say now looking back that the second sprint bonification was too much. The objective for the first sprint bonification was just to move the legs and get back the feeling, and the second one we were full on," Baffi said.

“I think Giacomo was a bit too nervous in the first sprint, he jumped two or three times. Overall, I don’t believe Giacomo had super legs today, 6th was not the objective. But anyway, he did his job.  He was there. He fought. And now we move forward to the next days. There is a lot of racing left.”