Impey victorious in Viechtach

Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge) won the queen stage at Bayern-Rundfahrt and took over the leader's jersey from stage 1 winner Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Sharp). The South African prevailed in the sprint finale from the 28-rider lead group with Milano-Sanremo champion Gerald Ciolek (MTN-Qhubeka) a close second and Adriano Malori (Lampre-Merida) third.

"The boys were excellent today," said Impey. "They took care of me from start to finish. Clarkey [Simon Clarke] did a great job setting me up for the sprint, Gerro [Simon Gerrans] was at my side all day and the rest of the boys made sure I was fuelled up right. It's a nice win for me and the team."

Ciolek was pleased with his second place result, considering he's not at 100 percent health.

"I am of course very happy with second place on this extremely difficult stage," said Ciolek. "Because of my cold, I couldn't prepare myself right, but it is going better than I expected.

"It would have been nice of the finish line was 20m earlier. The sprint started going rather late, until the last 200 metres. Until shortly before the finish I was still ahead, but Daryl Impey just had faster legs and more staying power."

Impey holds a three-second lead over Malori on general classification with Ciolek in third at four seconds. Overnight leader Alex Rasmussen finished 23 minutes off the pace today and dropped to 75th overall.

The pace of stage two was fast from the beginning as riders attacked from the peloton almost immediately. First it was a break of seven that gained time on the field, comprised of Jay Thomson (MTN-Qhubeka), Ruben Perez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Dominic Klemme (IAM Cycling), Cedric Pineau (FDJ), Michael Schwarzmann (Team NetApp-Endura), Grischa Janorschke (Nutrixxion Abus) and Cyril Lemoine (Sojasun).

Then, at the 30 kilometre mark, that break was brought back and a break of nine took off containing Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale), Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida), Nikias Arndt (Argos-Shimano), Stefan Denifl (IAM Cycling), Jerome Cousin (Europcar), Russell Downing (Team NetApp-Endura), Jan-Niklas Droste (Heizomat), Tobias Dohlus (Nutrixxion Abus) and Jean Marc Marino (Sojasun)

The nine riders established the biggest gap of the day as they reached 4:20 before the category one climb of the Sankt Englmar.

Only five riders remained in the front as Stefan Denifl (IAM Cycling) led the break over the top. Denifl would again take top honours on the next KOM at 137.2km to take over the mountains classification lead with only Cousin, Kadri and Arndt still with him at the head of the race.

Kadri would drop his breakaway companions on the descent and drove onwards alone in front. The AG2R La Mondiale rider led a group of 20 riders by 20 seconds with 38km remaining, while a second chase group of approximately 40 trailed by 50 seconds. Soon afterwards Kadri plus the two chase groups all merged to form a lead group of 60 riders.

As the pace remained high, the main field split again when a group of 14 riders emerged from the peloton with 20 kilometres to go: Geraint Thomas, Ian Stannard and Peter Kennaugh (Sky), Maxime Bouet and John Gadret (AG2R La Mondiale), Damiano Cunego and Adriano Malori (Lampre-Merida), Warren Barguil (Argos-Shimano), Marcel Wyss (IAM Cycling), Pierre Rolland (Europcar), David Tanner (Blanco), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) plus Simon Clarke and Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDge). A chase group caught back on six kilometres from the finish and approximately 30 riders would contest the sprint finale in Viechtach.