Stage 2

The road

At the start

Orica fill the first six places

Simon Gerrans wears the first maglia rosa and five more Orica-GreenEdge riders sit level on his time behind him, seven seconds up on Tinkoff-Saxo. Ramón Carretero does not start. Today runs 180 kilometres back along the Milan-San Remo road in reverse to Genoa, two laps of the city, and a finish that drags uphill at two per cent for the last kilometre. The sprinters get their first look at each other.

How it was won

1. 156 km to go

   Tinkoff turn the screw

   The day's only climb, fifty kilometres out, and Tinkoff-Saxo set a ferocious pace for Contador with Astana tucked in behind guarding Aru. Nine minutes of breakaway advantage simply evaporates.

2. 2At the line

   Viviani's first Grand Tour stage

   Greipel opens at 200 metres and fades; Hofland comes past him on the right; and then Elia Viviani, with no lead-out train at all, does exactly the same thing to Hofland inside the last 25 metres.

The result