Young Italian rider Elia Viviani (Cannondale) barely put a pedal stroke out of place in Naples on Saturday afternoon but he had to surrender to the law of the survival of the fittest at the end of stage one of the Giro d’Italia, as Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) prevailed in the sprint.

His Cannondale teammate Cameron Wurf had spent much of the afternoon off the front, allowing Viviani to sit in the wheels as QuickStep and Argos-Shimano went about the business of setting up the bunch finish. Then, on the final lap of the city centre circuit, Viviani was perfectly marshalled to the front, escaping the crash that split the peloton and ended the hopes of Mattia Gavazzi (Androni-Venezuela).

“In the team meeting this morning, I asked the ragazzi to bring me to the front early because I didn’t want to get bottled in and I think they did that for me perfectly,” Viviani told La Gazzetta dello Sport afterwards. “They did great work for me in the final kilometres and then it came down to a head-to-head against Cavendish, on a finish like that… I didn’t lose by much, but I lost. I just hope at least that I gave him a bit of a fright.”

Despite the displeasure of missing out on a jackpot so early, Viviani was gracious in defeat and lavish in his approval of his vanquisher.

“We know who he is, we know how many stages he’s won at the Tour and the Giro,” Viviani said. “I said it last week at the Tour of Romandie when he was saying he wasn’t on form – Cavendish is a champion and when he has an objective in mind he’s hard to beat. I can only hope that I manage to get over the mountains in this Giro a little better than he does and then maybe I might manage to beat him in a sprint or two in the latter half of this Giro.”

Despite all the acclaims heaped upon him from his teammates on crossing the line, however, Viviani is highly aware that sprinting is a business in which only results matter. In spite of his constancy through the opening months of the season, Viviani has yet to take a win in 2013. Nevertheless, he struck an optimistic note as he headed off to clean up for the podium ceremony.

“Even though I haven’t won, I’ve always been up there so my morale is quite high,” Viviani said. “I’m missing the win alright and when you’re a sprinter that weighs on you quite a lot. But I set out this season aiming to be a factor in the big races. I was a protagonist at Paris-Nice and I’ve been a protagonist again today at the Giro. And the Giro is still long. There are twenty stages left and some sprints where I can have a go.”