FDJ's Nacer Bouhanni won the second stage of the Tour of Beijing.
BMC's Thor Hushovd was in the leader's jersey for this 201.5km flatish stage from Huairou Studio City to Yanqing.
Maxime Bouet of AG2R, Lampre's Massimo Graziato, Lotto Bellisol's Olivar Kaisen, Thomas De Gendt of Vacansoleil and Chad Beyer were the five escapers with De Gendt taking the first climb after 16kms and the second after 29 kilometres.
Bouet was first over the sprint line after 65.5kms and De Gendt took his third KOM climb after 87kms before Bouet took the second sprint after 110 kilometres.
With BMC's British rider Steve Cummings, who won a stage in this race last year, drilling the peloton, the quintet had a lead of 4.04 with 75kms to go but that dropped dramatically on the fourth climb of the stage.as Bouet and Kaisen went away on their own on the category two climb at Yansham Tianchi.
Through the countryside of this vast country, Kaisen took the eight points for the fourth climb ahead of Bouet, De Gendt and Steve Cummings but back came Bouet to take the third sprint and the jersey after 187.3kms.
With Bouet reeled in and after a shake of hands with Marco Pinotti, the peloton headed towards Yanqing, chasing Kaisen with 26kms to go.
Kaisen had a lead of 2.13 but that started to come down and heading into the outskirts of Yanqing, his lead was just over a minute.on a grey day.
Into the final ten kilometres and Kaisen was only eighteen seconds clear and on the straight long road, he was in the sight of the peloton.
A look round from Kaisen saw him move over and let BMC power past him down the side of the Guishui River.
Into the final kilometre and away went an Orica GreenEdge rider in Michael Matthews before a surge of sprinters flew past him. FDJ's Nacer Bouhanni was brought to the front and he timed his move to perfection to win in a time of 4.59.50 ahead of Robert Ferrari, Mitchell Docker, Matti Breschel and Alessandro Petacchi.
Nacer Bouhanni now leads the race from Thor Hushovd with both riders having the same time. Maxime Bouet is third, one second back.
Fourth placed Willem Wauters is in the white jersey with Luka Mezgec in the Green jersey.
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