Casper van Uden has sprinted to second place on the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia U23 rounding out a strong ride from the team to target this early opportunity for a sprint finish.

After an attacking start, an early breakaway finally went clear of four riders which build a lead of a couple of minutes over what was a largely flat parcours. Their lead wasn’t to last long as the peloton, led by Development Team DSM, kept a fast pace in the chase, catching the break before the finale and maintaining a high tempo to the finish.

After getting to the front earlier than planned, it was very tight sprint for the line with the team just missing out on the stage victory but showing strong legs to get the race underway.

After the stage, Casper commented: “The boys did a good job today controlling the stage. In the last 15 kilometres it was very chaotic but with eight to go I found them again. Our timing was a bit off and with one kilometre to go I was already on the front so I got stuck and ran out of time with more speed.”

Team DSM coach Boris Zimine added: “Today the plan was to go all in for Casper and he was the main favourite for the stage being the fastest sprinter in the bunch. The break went very early in the race with only four riders and we controlled the race all day but in the end nobody wanted to help us.

“Coming into the final sprint it was like a washing machine so it was tough to find each other and the guys had already put in a big effort. Casper went alone in the last kilometre and did a really big sprint because he was not really in a good position but he found an opening and managed to finish second and was clearly very fast today. It’s a disappointment of course, but at the same time we can be really proud as the guys respected the plan and did a really good job today.”