Henderson wins stage

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The city that gave us such musical legends as Lemmy (Motorhead), Slash (Guns 'n Roses) and Robbie Williams gave the second stage of the Tour of Britain a new race leader, when Greg Henderson of Sky took the sprint beating Michael Albasini and Heinrich Haussler after the riders had been in day long break of 18 riders.

The 100-mile route which went from Burslem in Stoke to Hanley in Stoke saw 101 riders take the start with only Jonny Bellis (Saxo Bank) having pulled out on the first stage yesterday. The torrential rain of yesterday was replaced with bright sunshine for most of the day as the riders took in some of the most beautiful parts of the Staffordshire Moorlands.

On a day that was much harder than many had predicted, a group of 18 went clear after just 10 miles, which included three Sky riders: Greg Henderson, Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas. It was perhaps knowledge of the local terrain that saw the British riders Thomas and Wiggins get in this useful break, knowing that the actual course was harder than it looked on the profile and also knowing that it might break the elastic to race leader Andre Greipel (HTC-Columbia).

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The three riders of the British based Sky Professional Cycling Team, who clearly want the general classification in their home tour, were joined by Federico Canutti (Colnago-CSF) Richie Porte (Team Saxo Bank) Michael Albasini (HTC-Columbia) Borut Bozic (Vaconsoleil) Jaroslav Marycz (Team Saxo Bank) Travis.Meyer (Garmin) Gianlucia Brambilla (Colnago-CSF) Koen De Kort (Skil Shimano), Michael Golas (Vaconsoleil) Robert Partridge (Endura Racing) Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) Heinrich Haussler (Cervelo Test Team) Cameron Meyer (Garmin), Patrick Sinkewitz (ISD) and Dan Craven (Rapha-Condor-Sharp).

The group very quickly built up a lead of 45 seconds which rang alarm bells in the peloton especially from Sean Kelly's AN Post team and Sigma Sport who were both lacking riders in the day-long breakaway that eventually proved so decisive. Their chasing efforts nearly did the trick and the gap at one point came down to under 30 seconds.

However, as the lead group tackled the high moorlands the gap began to grow steadily, but it was the second first category climb of Gun Hill (near Leek) that saw Porte attack and increase the time to the bunch while fragmenting the lead group, although it came back together. It did, though, get him more points in the King of the Mountains jersey which he pulled on in Stoke.

With 18 miles to go, there were 13 of the original 18 attackers left and various attempts to go clear including one by made by Haussler and Golas but to no avail as Sky (still with three in the break) pulled every move back. On the narrow, twisting drag to the finish in Hanley no one had the power to get past Henderson and he crossed the line with plenty of time to put his arms up in celebration not only for winning this difficult stage but also putting himself into the yellow jersey.

The post race press conference was lacking the star attraction of the day, stage winner and yellow jersey, Henderson, who himself was happy to answer questions from journalists but the Sky management had apparently declined to send him stating that "tomorrow was important day", and that they needed to head off.

Instead, Johnny Hoogerland who came eighth today and is now 12th overall and also won the day's Combativity jersey (for most aggressive rider) took the hot seat and said, "It was difficult today, not what I expected - I wanted to take it easy until stages 4 or 5 because these are heavy stages. But I saw a group of 16 to up the road so I went. It was a very, very hard stage."

But what now for the Vaconsoleil rider? "I think it is between 10 riders, and I think it is difficult for Henderson to keep the yellow jersey because he's good on hills but we are getting some very, very steep hills so I think its very difficult for him."

"We are not satisfied with a fifth place in GC, so we are going to try to win the overall here," he said. "We have a strong team - with Wout Poels and Matteo Carrara. We in good condition so I think we can make it pretty hard for the Sky team."

Thanks to Rapha Condor Sharp for their help with compiling this report.

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