Dubai Tour: Elia Viviani takes lead with win as Marcel Kittel misses out

Elia Viviani won stage two to take the lead of the Dubai Tour

Team Sky's Elia Viviani took the overall lead of the Dubai Tour by sprinting to victory on stage two at Palm Jumeirah.

With previous race leader Marcel Kittel out of contention after being held up by a crash 1km out, Viviani comfortably beat Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) into second place and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) into third to repeat his win on the same stage last year.

Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) lost position as a result of the crash but managed to fight his way back towards the head of the race, only to have his path blocked by another rider and ultimately finish 10th.

Viviani replaced Marcel Kittel in the overall race lead

The 10 bonus seconds Viviani received for the win draw him level on time with Kittel, but thanks to better combined stage placings, the Italian takes over in the leader's blue jersey, with Nizzolo two seconds back in third and Cavendish four seconds down in fifth.

Viviani said: "[Michal] Golas, Andy Fenn and [Ben] Swifty did a perfect lead-out for me. We came out of the tunnel really, really fast. Andy and Swifty took me to 100m to go, so a big thanks to the team.

"Yesterday we had some faults and I finished eighth. Last night we analysed what went wrong and we made a plan for today, which was wait, wait, wait. Today we had a perfect lead-out."

Viviani praised his Team Sky team-mates for a 'perfect' lead-out

Viviani will now look to defend his lead on Friday's third stage, which ends with a short but steep climb to Hatta Dam.

He finished almost six minutes down on the winner on the same stage last year but is more optimistic of a positive outcome this time.

Viviani added: "Last year we didn't see the stage before and we tried with Swifty and I dropped with 10km to go.

Stage two of the Dubai Tour took in some classic Arabian scenes

"This year I also have Tour de San Luis in the legs and my condition is better and we try. It's a short climb and really steep, but we will try to not lose a lot of time.

"We also have Saturday's final stage to try to win the GC."

Viviani's win was Team Sky's third in 24 hours, after Peter Kennaugh won stage one of the Herald Sun Tour in Australia and Wout Poels won stage one of the Vuelta a la Communitat Valenciana in Spain.

Stage two result

1 Elia Viviani (Ita) Team Sky, 4:07:39

2 Sacha Modolo (Ita) Lampre-Merida, same time

3 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, st

4 Andrea Guardini (Ita) Astana, st

5 Tomas Vaitkus (Ltn) Al Nasr Pro Cycling, st

6 Ben Swift (GB) Team Sky, st

7 Michael Kolar (Slo) Tinkoff, st

8 Grzegorz Stepniak (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice, st

9 Chris Opie (GB) ONE Pro Cycling, st

10 Mark Cavendish (GB) Dimension Data, st

Selected other

22 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Etixx - Quick-Step, st

General classification 

1 Elia Viviani (Ita) Team Sky, 7:42:50

2 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Etixx - Quick-Step, same time

3 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, +2secs

4 Sacha Modolo (Ita) Lampre-Merida, +4

5 Mark Cavendish (GB) Dimension Data, st

6 Soufiane Haddi (Mor) Skydive Dubai, +9

7 Andrea Guardini (Ita) Astana, +10

8 Tomas Vaitkus (Ltn) Al Nasr Pro Cycling, st

9 Michael Kolar (Slo) Tinkoff, st

10 Chris Opie (GB) ONE Pro Cycling, st