Henderson Wins Stage Two Of The Paris-Nice

Last updated : 07 March 2011 By Kev Monks

Team Sky's Greg Henderson won the second stage of the Paris-Nice this afternoon.

Tony Gallopin (Cofidis) and Maxime Bouet (AG2R) broke clear and got up to six minutes clear of the 199km second stage from 199km from Montfort l'Amaury to Amilly, competed for by 175 riders.

On a sunny afternoon, the peleton started to chase them down. Seven riders including Radio Shack's Levi Leipheimmer crashed with 54km to go,

Eleven kilometres down the road there was another crash in the middle of the peleton whch included Leopard Trek's Frank Schleck.

With 39.5km to go the race came to a halt when the leaders were stopped at a level crossing to let a train pass. Gallopin and Bouet were allowed to retstart when the train passed and the barriers re-opened with a 45 second lead.

A third crash took down eight riders with 30km left just before Maxime Bouet who had dropped Gallopin was finally caught.

The pace stayed high as the race arrived in Amilly. HTC Highroad, did their bit. Thomas De Gendt wearing his leaders yellow jersey went on a flyer with a kilometre and a half to go before he was reeled back in.

Geraint Thomas then got his foot down and lead out Greg Henderson who went for the line and got there first ahead of Matt Goss, Denis Galimzyanov, Heinrich Haussler and Peter Sagan. 

Thomas De Gendt, who revealed he had given up eating sausages to help keep his weight down, retained his leaders yellow jersey with a four second lead over Greg Henderson.

Stage three is from Cosne-Cours-Sur-Loire to Nuits-Saint Georges and you can see it on Eurosport.

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Mark Cavendish will ride in the Tirreno-Adriatico which starts in Italy on Wednesday.

The race starts with a team time trial

 

Picture copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM