Giro del Trentino: Kanstantsin Siutsou takes solo win as Bradley Wiggins climbs GC

Kanstantsin Siutsou held off a late challenge from Mauro Santambrogio

Belarusian rider Siutsou attacked early on the 14km ascent to the summit finish at Vetriolo Terme and held off a late charge from Italy's Mauro Santambrogio to claim victory for the British team.

Wiggins crossed the line 19 seconds later alongside third-placed Vincenzo Nibali, who had earlier instigated the chase of Siutsou by attacking 3km out and taking a select group of pre-race favourites with him.

The Czech Republic's Josef Cerny surrendered the overall race lead after being dropped on the climb and the pink jersey is now taken on by France's Maxime Bouet, after the winner of stage 1a limited his losses to finish 2min 23sec down.

He now leads Siutsou overall by 3min 19sec, with Wiggins 3min 48sec back in fourth and Nibali 3min 57sec adrift in fifth.

Siutsou told teamsky.com: "I thought maybe I could try to make an attack and see what happened. A couple of riders followed me but didn't really want to ride, so I just kept pushing a little bit more and tried to control my power.

"Astana tried to close it down but when I saw that there was 5km to go and the gap of just over 30 seconds, I tried to push a little bit harder, but not to go to the very maximum, as I wanted to try and keep something for the final kilometre in case someone closed me down."

Mountainous stage

Stage two took the riders 224.8km from Sillian in Austria to Vetriolo Terme in Italy over two category-one climbs.

Five men broke clear of the peloton early on and opened up a gap that reached its peak at over six minutes. Marco Coledan (Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox) later headed out on his own, but was caught 11km from the line as several teams ramped up the pace of the peloton on the lower slopes of the concluding ascent.

Siutsou wasted little time in attacking alongside Pierre Rolland (Europcar) and Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox) 9km out and the trio quickly opened up a 20-second advantage.

The Team Sky rider then dropped both men with stinging bursts and it wasn't until the late counter from Nibali (Astana) that his victory looked in doubt.

Six men initially went clear of the peloton with the Italian, but they were soon whittled down to four - Nibali, Wiggins, Santambrogio (Vini Fantini) and Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r-La Mondiale) - after Cadel Evans (BMC) and two others in failed to keep pace.

Santambrogio was then allowed to set off in lone pursuit of Siutsou inside the last 1km, but he fell four seconds short of making the catch.

Stage two result

1 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Team Sky, 5:48.08
2 Mauro Santambrogio (Ita) Vini Fantini, +4secs
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, +19
4 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Team Sky, same time
5 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) Ag2r-La Mondiale, +28
6 Stefano Pirazzi (Ita) Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox, +34
7 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +37
8 Alexandr Dyachenko (Kaz) Astana, +38
9 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Europcar, +45
10 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC, +46

General classification

1 Maxime Bouet (Fra) Ag2r-La Mondiale, 55:48.00
2 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Team Sky, +3:19
3 Pavel Kochetkov (Rus) Rusvelo, +3:35
4 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Team Sky, +3:48
5 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, +3:57
6 Michael Rodriguez (Col) Team Colombia, +4:03
7 Mauro Santambrogio (Ita) Vini Fantini, +4:04
9 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +4:06
9 Alexandr Dyachenko (Kaz) Astana, +4:20
10 Stefano Pirazzi (Ita) Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox, +4:38