Marcel Kittel has won stage two of the Giro d'Italia as he bossed his sprint rivals in Nijmegen.

The German rider won by several bike lengths from FDJ's Arnaud Demare and Sacha Modolo of Lampre-Merida.

Kittel's Etixx-QuickStep lead-out train lost control after leading the peloton under the flamme rouge but Kittel kept his cool and latched on to do Demare's wheel before launching himself clear early and quickly distancing his rivals.

Many of Kittel's chief sprint rivals suffered in the final metres.

Orica GreenEdge's Caleb Ewan had to settle for seventh, while Lotto-Soudal's Andre Greipel and Team Sky's Elia Viviani finished outside the top 10.

Giant-Alpecin's Tom Dumoulin finished safely in the pack to retain the leader's pink jersey the Dutchman took on Friday's short opening time trial in Appeldoorn, although Kittel's 10 bonus seconds for victory moved him up to third place, just one second behind LottoNL Jumbo's Primoz Roglic and Dumoulin.

Kittel will aim to take pink in Sunday's stage, which takes the riders back to Arnhem and is also expected to end in a bunch sprint.

This was Kittel's third stage victory in the Giro, although he is yet to win on Italian soil as his previous two came during the 2014 Grande Partenza in Belfast and Dublin.

Saturday's stage even briefly ventured into the German's homeland as it wound its way from Arnhem to Nijmegen along a 190km route which was almost completely flat.

The only real danger for the riders was the threat of strong winds but the conditions were relatively calm, much to the relief of the general classification hopefuls.

The stage was animated by a three-man breakaway as Omar Fraile Matarranza (Dimension Data) and Giacomo Berlato (Nippo-Vini Fantini) joined Maarten Tjallingii - the veteran LottoNL Jumbo rider who will retire next month - in heading off up the road.

They built a gap of 10 minutes with 105km to go before the peloton began chasing them down, but Tjallingii was able to soak up the adoration of the large crowds while Matarranza crested the only minor climb of the day first to take the opening King of the Mountains jersey of the race.

They were chased down as they headed into the circuit finish in Nijmegen and the lead-out trains began to battle.

Etixx-QuickStep looked well placed as they lead the pack into the final kilometre but a counter-attack from FDJ split them up, leaving Kittel to freestyle as he latched on to Demare's wheel and waited for his moment.

Ireland's Nicholas Roche sits in the 31st place overall, 30 seconds down on Dumoulin.

His Team Sky teammate Philip Deignan is further down the classifications, sitting in 185th, 2.03 down on the leader.