Roman Kreuziger and team captain Alberto Contador move to 5th and 6th place overall respectively after Tinkoff-Saxo with Chris Juul-Jensen spearheading the team had put in an effort at the front of the pack during the majority of the day. Stage 2 of Giro d'Italia eventually finished in a bunch sprint, where Elia Viviani took the win after several crashes had marked the finale.
 
After crossing the line safely, team leader Alberto Contador marked that the reason for positioning the team at the front was to minimize any risks.
 
“Today the team worked very well with the objective of staying safe and avoiding any crashes. Today, the best for doing so was to ride at the front. On a stage like this it’s important not to get caught at the back or crash like we saw happening on the last part of the stage”, says Alberto Contador before adding about the stages to come.
 
“Tomorrow is an important stage, it’s very short but with hilly terrain and a climb along the 136km route. We especially need to concentrate in the first 90km and control the race, and then maybe someone can attack. In the Giro you can lose everything at any given moment and you have to be attentive. Right now everything is going well and I’m feeling good. We have to wait for the next stages to see how everything develops but at the moment everything is perfect”, underlines the team leader, who sits 6th in the GC, 7 seconds behind race leader Michael Matthews.

Stage 2 from Albenga to Genova came after yesterday’s flat-out effort at the opening team time trial. And the peloton also allowed a breakaway to build a significant time advantage before Orica-GreenEdge and then Tinkoff-Saxo reeled in the escapees with around 15km to go. Tinkoff-Saxo left the front of the peloton and eased off as they went into the safe zone of the last three kilometers, where the sprinter’s teams took over. In the final sprint, Elia Viviani (SKY) proved the fastest.
 
Despite the relatively flat stage profile, Tinkoff-Saxo’s sports director Steven de Jongh explains that stage 2 was no easy day.
 
“Today, we chose to sit at the front until just before the finale. It was a hot day and the team delivered a solid performance, as the main goal was to cross the line without having had any disturbances. We succeeded in that, which is positive, as the first days of a grand tour are always tricky, a bit nervous and with crashes like we saw today. In general it was a day with a lot of up and down and left and right, which created some tension and made for a day that wasn’t easy. But the guys worked at the front until we were into the last three kilometers and we got through safely”, concludes Steven de Jongh.