Stage 2 Recap
By Paul Sherwen

After the importance of the time trial on the opening day the second stage was offered to the sprinters today. Despite the race being dominated by a long breakaway it was all together for the run in to the finish.

To win you have to take control and that's exactly what team Columbia did.

They first allowed Saxo Bank to keep the four man break at a reasonable distance, which after all was their responsibility as they lead the race with Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara.

As the race reached about an hour to go Columbia - HCT sent a couple of riders to the front in order to push up the pace. Almost as soon as they did that the gap began to drop dramatically.

Cavendish's team rode very sensibly pulled back the leading quartet slowly until it was time to have their train - Mick Rogers, George Hincapie and Mark Renshaw line up with the Manxman in their slipstream.

They seem to have found perfection in the art of the lead out for their sprinter and despite a couple of other teams trying to get in on the action they kept control of the front of the pack. First with Hincapie and then with Renshaw leaving Cavendish the honour of finishing it off for the team.

All the other sprinters in the race were battling for Cav's slipstream - but not one of them could come anywhere close to him. He notched up stage win number one for this year, but number five in his career, creeping slowly toward the British record held by Barry Hoban of eight.

It was good to see Tyler Farrar of Garmin-Slipstream getting second place in his first attempt at the Tour de France. An indication that he is not totally overawed by the size of this great event and showing that one day he too could get a stage win here for the USA