Cavendish sprints to stage 2 Giro d'Italia victory

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Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) won the second stage of the 2012 Giro d'Italia, taking a small group sprint. A crash on the final corner split the peloton, with only the top sprinters coming through to the end. Matthew Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) was second, and Geoffrey Soupe (FDJ-Big Mat) was a surprise third.

Taylor Phinney (BMC) successfully defended his leader's jersey, but had to work hard at the end. He dropped his chain after a crash with 8km to go, and had to make up a 30-second gap to get back to the field.

"I just found myself on the ground, having touched wheels and lost balance," he said. "Then I couldn't get my chain back on. So I kind of made a second prologue effort. I was quite scared there for a second that I was going to lose the jersey."

Teammates Alessandro Ballan and Danilo Wyss brought him back to the field with 4.6km to go.  “I had a lot of adrenaline going," he said.

Cavendish praised his team, as always, starting with Ian Stannard, who “did 150 kilometres alone reeling in the break – he did incredible.”

Going into the finale, “Everybody handled it well and we stayed together as a team. I was really looked after at the finish and kept sheltered. Geraint took me perfect and went exactly when he was supposed to. I was able to come off him and win the stage so I'm very, very happy."

A trio in the break

As expected, a break got away early on this cool day. Alfredo Balloni (Farnese Vini), Olivier Kaisen (Lotto Belisol) and Miguel Rubiano (Androni Giacattoli-Venezuela) took off and quickly built up a huge lead. The gap topped out at 13:15 with 145km to go.

The field was relaxed on this first road stage of the Giro, and took its time with the chase. Sprinters' teams Rabobank, Orica-GreenEdge and Sky shared the work at the head of the peloton with BMC riding protectively around race leader Phinney.

The stage actually featured a climb, ranked category 4, small but still enough to establish the first king of the mountains. Balloni attacked out of the three-man group, followed by Rubiano, and took the points which would give him the mountains classification jersey at the end of the day.

The gap continued to drop and the peloton crossed over only some five minutes later. With 60km to go, it had dropped all the way to barely two minutes.

Sky was often to be seen at the front of the field, with Cavendish's world championship rainbow stripes in the first row. A crash near the the rear of the field took a handful of riders down, as the gap hovered around the 30-second mark.

Within seconds after crossing under the 40km banner, the field caught the three escapees - rather early, for a mass sprint stage. So, of course, the next attack came almost immediately, from Danish rider Lars Ytting Bak (Lotto Belisol).

Bak had built up a gap of 44 seconds with 30km to go, and that was about as high as it got. The peloton was perfectly willing to let him go it alone in the wind, but was careful not to let the gap grow too big and brought it down to around the 30 second mark.

Eventually Bak realized he wouldn't be soloing in to a stage win, and relaxed. Just before the 17km marker, he was absorbed back into the field. Sky stayed at the head of things, with Astana close behind them.

A messy ending

With only 8km to go, Phinney saw his dreams starting to go down the drain. He dropped his chain, and it seemed like it took forever until help came and got it fixed. He was over 30 seconds down and had to push it to the limit to get back to the peloton. Teammate Danilo Wyss dropped back quickly to help pull the maglia rosa back to the main group. Finally, three teammates escorted him into the field and then up to the front again.

Garmin-Barracuda had meanwhile taken charge of the lead work, and the sprinters' teams started lining up with 3.5km to go.

Garmin-Barracuda opened the sprint, with GreenEdge taking over. A crash took out most of the field with about 150m to go and split the field, leaving the sprint to a handful of riders. Cavendish didn't really need the advantage, as he waited for the right timing and pulled through a hole to claim the victory.

The crash happened just after the final curve leading into the finish, when Theo Bos' wheel slipped away. He flew into Katusha's Alexander Kristoff, who was launched into the barrier, but eventually crossed the finish line with blood dripping down his face.

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