Richie Porte has made an encouraging to his first Grand Tour as Sky team leader, sitting 22 seconds behind Alberto Contador after nine stages.

The biggest test for the Australian will be maintaining that challenge over the full three weeks – an area where he has struggled in the past – but his form looks good for now. Porte hasn’t been afraid to attack and has successfully covered every move by Aru and Contador.

Porte’s early form isn’t the only success story for Team Sky so far, with Elia Viviani having ended their Grand Tour drought with a first stage win since Vasil Kiryienka at the 2013 Vuelta a Espana.

After a barren 2014, the team had to wait just two days into the first Grand Tour of the season as Viviani sprinted to success on stage two.

The Italian, whose victory was the first Grand Tour stage win of his career, currently tops the points classification and Team Sky will hope to compete on two fronts for the rest of the race.

While Team Sky sacrificed Mark Cavendish’s hopes of a second successive Tour de France green jersey when Bradley Wiggins won the race in 2012, Viviani has been given licence to go for intermediate sprint points and in Bernie Eisel has at least one man to assist him in the bunch sprints.

The evidence of these first nine days is that a bid for both the maglia rosa and maglia rosso is not out of the question.