Australian cyclist Matt Goss has taken the lead of Tirreno-Adriatico after his team, GreenEdge, dominated the opening 16.9km team time-trial from San Vincenzo to Donoratico in the Italian stage race.

GreenEdge clocked a time of 18min 41sec, beating RadioShack and Garmin-Barracuda to the top step of the podium.

It was a successful return to northern Italy for the 31-year-old Goss who also won the Milan-Sanremo race last year.

It wasn’t such a successful outing for last year’s Australian winner Cadel Evans, the Tour de France champion, whose BMC team finished 17th, 58 seconds back.

British team Sky finished fourth, 23 seconds behind the winners, with Astana, whose leader Roman Kreuziger is one of the favourites, fifth at half a minute down.

Stage two on Thursday is a 230-kilometre leg from San Vincenzo to Indicatore.