Solid start in Tirreno-Adriatico team time trial

Team Sky get off to a solid start at Tirreno-Adriatico by taking eighth place on the opening team time trial.

Team Sky got off to a solid start at Tirreno-Adriatico by taking eighth place on the opening team time trial stage.

The team clocked an average speed of 56kmph over the pan-flat 22.7km route along the shores of Lido di Camaiore, and that proved just 21 seconds short of BMC Racing's winning time of 23 minutes and 55 seconds.

Team Sky were the 17th of 23 teams to roll down the start ramp, and crossed the line with six riders after Michal Golas and Elia Viviani had swung off following their earlier efforts.

Team leaders Wout Poels and Michal Kwiatkowski didn't suffer any problems, and Kwiatkowski was happy with the result when we spoke to him immediately after the stage.

He told TeamSky.com: "We did everything correctly on the road - we were all committed and went as fast as possible. We only lost 21 seconds to the winning team, and that's not a big gap with six days of racing still to go.

"The race was never going to be won today, but it was possible to lose it. That didn't happen so we're looking forward to tomorrow now."

In stark contrast to the wintery conditions at Paris-Nice, the weather in Italy was dry and sunny and the lead changed hands on four occasions before BMC Racing posted a time that no-one else could beat.

Etixx-Quick - Step had led before them, and ended the day in second position, just two seconds adrift, with FDJ rounding out the podium a further seven seconds in arrears.

With those results in the bag, Team Sky's attentions quickly turned to Thursday's stage - the longest of the race - which features a punchy climb in the last 5km.

Kwiatkowski is being tipped as a potential stage winner on Thursday, but the man himself insists the general classification remains his primary concern.

He added: "Tomorrow is a tough stage to predict; we don't know how it's going to turn out yet.

"Wout and I are concentrating on the whole race, not specific stages. We'll try and keep ourselves near the front of the peloton and potentially save our legs for the harder mountain stages to come."