2013 Giro d'Italia, Stage 2 Results

SKY SHINES OVER ISCHIA

In brilliant sunshine and warm, humid heat, Sky Procycling won today’s short but technical, 17.4 km team time trial. They completed the course in 22 minutes 05 seconds. Second were Movistar, 9 seconds slower, and third were Astana, 14 seconds slower than Sky Procycling.

The new race leader is Salvatore Puccio of Sky Procycling who arrived fourth and behind Bradley Wiggins. Although he received the same time as his teammates he will wear the Maglia Rosa tomorrow because the sum total of his placings in Stage 1 and 2 are lower than that of any of theirs. "It was only two minutes before we celebrated the stage win on the podium that I realized I was the new Maglia Rosa. To tell the truth, we planned to put my teammate Dario Cataldo in either Maglia Rosa or the Maglia Bianca today. When they told me I was the new Maglia Rosa, I was a bit shocked, but also very, very happy. It all happened so quickly that it hasn’t really sunk in yet and I think it will be hard to sleep tonight.” Puccio continued, "Everyone who ever rides a bike dreams of wearing this jersey. After two years of working hard for the team, today I took a small moment of satisfaction for myself. It’s no secret that the team wants the Maglia Rosa later in the race. Of course, I’d like to keep the jersey for many days, but I doubt it will happen. The Giro wasn’t even in my race programme until a month ago, after the Tour of Flanders. My real dream is to win one of the OneDay Monuments: my favorite is the Tour of Flanders.” Fate smiled on Puccio, 23 yers old from Sicily, who is in his first Gio d'Italia.

"We had talked this morning with Bradley about who would cross the line first, and he wanted to give me this gift, but none of us had thought about the positions in the sprint yesterday," Cataldo said about his not winning the pink jersey despite arriving first for Sky at the finish line.

Great results for Vini Fantini-Selle Italia and Lampre-Merida. Garmin-Sharp and BMC performed worse than expected.


Today's results:
1 Sky Procycling 0:22:05
2 Movistar Team 0:00:09
3 Astana Pro Team 0:00:14
4 Katusha 0:00:19
5 Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 0:00:22
6 Lampre-Merida
7 Garmin-Sharp 0:00:25
8 Blanco Pro Cycling Team 0:00:28
9 Orica-GreenEdge
10 Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:00:34
11 Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:35
12 BMC Racing Team 0:00:37
13 Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox 0:00:41
14 RadioShack Leopard 0:00:43
15 Team Saxo-Tinkoff
16 Androni Giocattoli 0:00:46
17 Omega Pharma-Quick-Step Cycling Team 0:00:48
18 Ag2R La Mondiale 0:00:50
19 FDJ 0:00:55
20 Colombia 0:00:56
21 Lotto Belisol 0:01:00
22 Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:01:01
23 Team Argos-Shimano 0:01:13

Top 20 GC:
1 Salvatore Puccio (Ita) Sky Procycling 3:20:43
2 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling
3 Sergio Luis Henao Montoya (Col) Sky Procycling
4 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Sky Procycling
5 Rigoberto Uran Uran (Col) Sky Procycling
6 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:09
7 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team
8 José Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team
9 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team
10 Eros Capecchi (Ita) Movistar Team
11 Tanel Kangert (Est) Astana Pro Team 0:00:14
12 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team
13 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team
14 Fredrik Carl Wilhelm Kessiakoff (Swe) Astana Pro Team
15 Paolo Tiralongo (Ita) Astana Pro Team
16 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Astana Pro Team
17 Luca Paolini (Ita) Katusha 0:00:19
18 Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) Katusha
19 Vladimir Gusev (Rus) Katusha
20 Yury Trofimov (Rus) Katusha

Tomorrow:212 km from beautiful Sorrento to Marina di Ascea. The stage is divided into three parts. The first part takes place on the Amalfi peninsula with a circuit around the town to be covered twice before passing San Pietro and following the coast to Salerno. From the intermediate sprint at Salerno (km 69.8), largely straight and flat roads lead to the intermediate sprint at Agropoli (km 113.9). The final part in Cilento has many curves. It rises and falls continuously. There are two GPMs (kms 153 and 202.2) with technical descents, the second of which levels out 1500 m from the finish line.

Follow on Twitter: ITALIANCYCJOURN or receive an email when new content is added using the "Follow by Email" button on the right side column.

Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, racing, etc. are always welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are now more than 2,800 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog. There is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.