Astana Pro Team rider Vincenzo Nibali rode to a podium finish on Wednesday in stage two at the Giro del Trentino, surging ahead in the final km following the strong team work of teammates Fabio Aru, Alexandr Dyachenko and Valerio Agnoli.

Nibali, who won the overall classification at Giro del Trentino in 2008, was working near the front of a peloton of around 30 riders near the beginning of the final climb of the 224 km stage from Sillian in Austria to the Vetriolo Terme in Italy's Tirol, setting a pace for Astana Pro Team that firmly took control over the peloton.

Nibali said the team worked well to split the final group, and singled out Aru for praise.

"Fabio Aru is a young rider, very strong, who is getting better and better every day. We worked today on this stage to give him the experience of racing at the front of a major climb and he showed very good legs," Nibali said when summarizing the events of the day on the Astana website.

Nibali finished Wednesday's stage 19 seconds behind Belarusian rider Konstantin Siutsou (Sky), and crossed the line just ahead of Bradley Wiggins (Sky).

"The work we have done at our training camp in Tenerife was very professional, very well organized, and very hard. We have come to the Giro del Trentino to race against the grand favourites at the Giro d'Italia in May, and today's stage was our first chance to test each other head to head in a race in Europe. We will have to sit back and look at the results and analyze the outcome, but today was a good day for Astana Pro Team and a good result going into May," Nibali said.