Astana got the Giro del Trentino off to a solid start when the Kazakhs took 6th in the opening team time trial. With a team mostly made up of climbers, the team was satisfied with its performance.

One year ago Astana won the Giro del Trentino with Vincenzo Nibali and this year they have started the race with the intention of defending its title while also preparing for the Giro d'Italia. The leaders will be the same in both stage races as Michele Scarponi and Fabio Aru will spearhead the Kazakhs in both Trentino and the grand tour.

Both riders excel in the mountains but before getting to their preferred terrain, they had to negotiate today's flat opening team time trial. With Fredrik Kessiakoff being the only real TT specialist, the team faced a difficult task but did well to come away with 6th.

The result means that Scarponi and Aru only lost 19 seconds to Cadel Evans who was best among the GC riders and gained 15 seconds on 2012 winner Domenico Pozzovivo. The team was content with the result as they head into the first of three consecutive summit finishes.

“Today was probably the easiest day of the week," Kessiakoff said. "Every stage until the end is for climbers, and every day is hard.

“The second part of the time trial we rode better, it was more technically difficult with a lot of corners and some inclines, not as flat as the first. With so many climbers on this squad we held our own against the specialists."

Veteran Paolo Tiralongo was less pleased.

"The first stage is done," he wrote on his website. "This is not the performance we expected in a team time trial, but it is also true that we are not a team time trial squad. We lacked the pace and the work done at altitude has not yet paid off. As for me personally, I will test my real conditon in tomorrow's summit finish."