Kanstantsin Siutsou (Sky) delivered a heroic performance to clinch a spectacular solo victory on stage two at the Giro del Trentino.

After the stage the modest Belarus rider explained the tactical decisions which led to yet another stage win for the team.

“When we started the climb we tried to go to the front and share the work with teams like Cannondale and Astana," he said on the Sky website. "Nobody took full responsibility on the climb in the first four km. We had Joe Dombrowski and Dario Cataldo at the front to cover moves and pull but in the end we left it to other teams to take it up. Again it’s about preparation for the Giro and it was a really hard climb today."

The end result saw a rare victory for one of the hardest workers in the peloton, the first for Siutsou since his national time trial title in 2011 and before that another solo victory at the Giro d'Italia in 2009.

“I thought maybe I could try to make an attack and see what happened," he added. "Maybe a team would come to the front and control the tempo which would suit Bradley. A couple of riders followed me but didn’t really want to ride so I just kept pushing a little bit more and tried to control my power. Astana tried to close it down but when I saw that there was 5 km to go and the gap was just over 30 seconds I tried to push a little bit harder, but not to go to the very maximum as I wanted to try and keep something for the final km in case someone closed me down.”