Giro d'Italia Stage 1: Mark Cavendish avoids crash to take maglia rosa in Naples

Mark Cavendish of Omega Pharma-Quick Step will wear the Giro d’Italia’s maglia rosa in tomorrow’s team time trial on the island of Ischia after winning the opening stage of this year’s race on a sweltering afternoon in Naples. Twice a wearer of the maglia rosa before, it's the first time his taken it after winning an individual stage, and today is his 11th stage victory in the race..

Elia Viviani of  of Cannondale came second and FDJ's Nacer Bouhanni third, in a sprint contested by a handful of riders, only 15 managing to avoid being held up after a crash on the final corner around a kilometre and a half out brought down a number of riders and split the field.

Those who came down included Garmin Sharp's David Millar, one of six British riders who took to the start of the 96th edition of the race this afternoon, but since the crash happened within the closing 3km, no-one who hit the deck or was held up will lose time.

Cavendish’s  team had toiled all day to ensure the  opening day of the race would come down to a bunch finish on the Lungomare Caracciolo, and had been joined at the front by Team Sky, looking to keep Bradley Wiggins out of trouble, and brought back the rider who spent much of the 130km stage out alone in front of the race.

That man was Cameron Wurf of Cannondale, who had got away early on with five other riders early on, as the race headed out to complete four laps of a 16.4km circuit that gave two opportunities to take mountains points at Posillipo, followed by eight laps of a shorter 8km circuit mainly along the seafront.

Ahead of the first categorised climb of this year’s race, Guillaume Bonnafond had attacked the group in a fruitless attempt to take maximum points – those would go to Movistar’s Giovanni Visconti – and Wurf subsequently had a quiet word with him.

It was the Tasmanian himself who got away ahead of the second ascent of the same climb, and Wurf at one point had an advantage of 2 minutes 5 seconds, but that became smaller each time the laps to go counter ticked down, and he was caught with two laps remaining.

The bunch sprint was now inevitable but the control exerted by Sky and Omega Pharma-Quick Step – the latter also had to deal with Jerome Pineau taking a tumble on a tight corner – at the front of the peloton ended as other teams including Cannondale and Orica-GreenEdge started jockeying for position ahead of the finale.

The Australian team had the numbers, but Matt Goss and Leigh Howard were off the pace as Viviani looked set to win, Cavendish having been forced wide by RadioShack-Trek’s Danilo Hondo, working for Giacomo Nizzolo.

The former world champion, who had also lost Gert Steegmans in the leadout with the Belgian having an issue with his gears with 500 metres left, recovered to overhaul Viviani on the line, leaving the Italian beating his handlebars in frustration.

“The sprinters who win are the ones who can sprint in the red zone, reflected Cavendish afterwards.

"I was in the red for most of that. It’s really hot out there. "But I wanted this so bad. My good friend Paul Smith is out there – he designed the jersey and I promised him I’d win the jersey for the first time.”

Giro d'Italia Stage 1 result

1  Mark CAVENDISH       OPQ    02:58:38
2  Elia VIVIANI         CAN    Same time
3  Nacer BOUHANNI       FDJ
4  Giacomo NIZZOLO      RLT
5  Matthew  GOSS        OGE
6  Francisco VENTOSO    MOV
7  Adam BLYTHE          BMC
8  Leigh HOWARD         OGE   at 3 secs
9  Danilo HONDO         RLT    
10 Brett LANCASTER      OGE   at 12 secs
11 John DEGENKOLB       ARG   at 18 secs18
12 Luca PAOLINI         KAT   
13 Ioannis TAMOURIDIS   EUS   
14 Diego ROSA           AND   
15 Ramunas NAVARDAUSKAS GRS   
16 Roberto FERRARI      LAM 
17 Robert HUNTER        GRS 
18 Tanel KANGERT        AST 
19 Marco MARCATO        VCD 
20 Andrey ZEITS         AST