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Cavendish celebrates victory.
triumph

Race for the prize: Cavendish secures stage win in Giro

The cyclist is now 12th in the general classification, 27 seconds behind leader Taylor Phinney

TEAM SKY’S MARK Cavendish claimed the second stage of the Giro d’Italia on Sunday, winning a sprint from Matt Goss and Geoffrey Soupe.

British sprinter Cavendish held off Orica-GreenEDGE’s Goss and FDJ-Big Mat’s Soupe in a frantic finish to the 206-kilometre stage in Herning, while BMC’s Taylor Phinney held onto the leader’s jersey despite a horror end to his day.

American Phinney lost his chain in the final eight kilometres, but managed to end the stage with a nine-second lead over Sky’s Geraint Thomas.

Thomas said he felt satisfied with his overall position through two stages of the Grand Tour event.

“I tried to carry my speed through the corners – (on) one or two I could have gone a bit faster, but losing by nine seconds I can’t blame it on a couple of corners,” Thomas said on Team Sky’s official website.

“Coming from the track, there’s a temptation to try and sprint fast out of those corners but that would obviously take a lot out of me so it was all about judging it correctly, which I think I did.”

In further carnage in the dying stages, Theo Bos (Rabobank) lost control of his bike 150m from the finish to crash into Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) which held up most of the field, but the pair recovered to cross the finish line.

Cavendish’s stage win saw him move to 12th in the general classification, some 27 seconds behind leader Phinney.

Garmin-Barracuda’s Alex Rasmussen is third, 13 seconds shy of the leader, while Team Saxo Bank’s Manuele Boaro is fourth.

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