Kittel fastest in Nijmegen, Dumoulin stays in pink
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Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin)(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)
Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida)(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)
Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) in the pink jersey at the start of stage 2 in Arnhem(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)
Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) wins stage 1 at Tour de Romandie(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The three-man breakaway; Omar Fraile Matarranza (Dimension Data), Giacomo Berlato (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNl-Jumbo)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
"Firstly I want to say chapeau to the people of the Netherlands for the great atmosphere on the road today. I'm super happy. Yesterday in the time trial I showed that I was in good shape. This was a tricky finale today but a finale where I said I'd stay with my teammates. They did a good job to put me in a good place for the sprint and I did the rest. There was a great atmosphere today, it was a great day."
"It was a party out there. The crowd was huge, especially on the final lap. I think we did a good job to keep the jersey. Kittel is now close now on GC and so maybe we'll follow a different plan tomorrow but I'll still wear this nice jersey tomorrow."
"I came up from about seventh or eighth place. I almost got Demare too. It's a pity I didn't get Kittel's wheel. He would probably have won but anyway but I could have had a go and taken him on.
"The high speed meant it was difficult to move up. It was a bit dangerous because I saw Nicola Ruffoni of Bardiani fighting for position with other riders. It's a pity but lets see what happens tomorrow. My form is good and third is not a bad result. There were a lot of people along the roadside and even in the road. It's great to see."
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"We did a really good job from 10km to go. We stayed at the front with Christian [Knees], David [Lopez] and Nico [Roche]," Viviani explained via his team.
"I was able to stay safe and Nico tried to keep me in a good position, but it was a really chaotic sprint and there was a headwind too. When Etixx took the lead they had a really fast lead-out train and I had to come from 15th position. I wasn't in a good position really, but tomorrow we will try again.
"At the moment Kittel is the strongest sprinter in the world and I know I need to stay on his wheel to try and take a win."
"I tried right from the start. I wanted to take the climber's jersey after going for it on the same stage last year. It didn't come off and I only got third but I'll keep attacking. Tomorrow is another day and I'm not going stop now. We've got a long way to go yet in the Giro d'Italia.
"The crowds were amazing out there. I had goose-bumps for long sections of the stage and the crowd gave you the moral to really fight. I hope its the same in Italy because this was something special."
"If there's no crashes on the first day of a Grand Tour, then it's generally a good thing. It was an amazingly beautiful out there, so many people came out to see the race, it really showed what a great cycling country Holland is. It's great that the Giro came here.
"Alejandro Valverde got through the stage safely and we kept him safe. For us it was a successful day."
