Giro d'Italia: Top 5 in the Opening Team Time Trial!
Etixx - Quick-Step Cycling Team earned a 4th place finish on Saturday for the 17.6km Stage 1 TTT of the Giro d'Italia, finishing with a time of 19'45" (53.468km/h) in the race from San Lorenzo Mare to Sanremo.
The team finished 19" down on stage winner Orica-GreenEDGE, who crossed the line at 19'26" (54.340km/h). Tinkoff-Saxo was 2nd (+7"), and Astana rounded out the podium in 3rd (+13"). The parcours was seen as conducive for a fast time trial, but with a couple tricky corners.
Etixx - Quick-Step looks next to 177km Stage 2 from Albenga to Genova. The stage strongly favors a bunch sprint arrival as there is only one categorized climb. There is a two-lap 6.8km finishing circuit before a flat finishing straight in Genova.
"I think it was a nice day for us," Uran said. "We did a good team time trial. It was a bit more windy than yesterday, and that made the course even harder. It would have been difficult to win today because there are teams like Orica-GreenEDGE that are more structured in the 2015 Giro for this kind of effort. But we are happy. We prepared well for this race and we can't complain about a 4th place finish. Starting tomorrow it is basically a whole new race. It will be a difficult first week including a difficult 3rd stage and even an uphill finish in the 5th stage. But what we learned from the last Giro d'Italia is that everyday something can happen. We will do our best and look forward to the next days."
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