Stage 1

The road

At the start

Naples, and a Giro that starts level

The ninety-sixth Giro d'Italia opens with a lap of the Bay of Naples: a hundred and thirty kilometres, two small climbs on the Via Francesco Petrarca early on, and a finish flat enough that every sprinter in the race has circled it. Nobody has a second on anybody yet. By this evening one of them will be in pink.

How it was won

1. 119 km to go

   Wurf's long afternoon ends

   Cameron Wurf has been out on his own for most of the day, two minutes at his best, and he holds it long enough to take the day's only intermediate sprint. Nineteen kilometres from home the Omega Pharma-led bunch finally has him.

2. 2At the line

   Cavendish takes the first pink

   Cannondale string the field out and a crash splits it for good, leaving a dozen riders to fight for Naples. Goss opens from two hundred metres with a perfect lead-out; Cavendish comes up the right-hand side at the very last moment and takes the stage, and the maglia rosa, by a bike length.

The result