The second stage of the Tour of Italy 2012 was predicted to end in a sprint and that's what happened today ... A leading trio took off very early in the stage but once they were taken back at 40 kilometers from the finish, a bunch sprint became inevitable. The World Champion, Mark Cavendish, won this stage in this sprint.

The summary of the 2nd stage of the Giro d'Italia 2012: Herning > Herning

Today a flat 206 kilometer stage with Herning as its start and finish city was on the programme of the Giro d'Italia 2012.

Under similar weather conditions as yesterday, with a little bit of sun, some clouds and temperatures which oscillated between 7 and 10°C during the day, three riders decided to take off. Right from the start, Olivier Kaisen (Lotto-Belisol), Miguel Rubiano (Androni Giocattoli) and Alfredo Balloni (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia) were the three riders who decided to give it a try alongside the Danish sea coast. This leading trio rapidly created a gap which reached its maximum after about sixty kilometers, at 13'15".

On top of the first and only climb of the day, the Østjerberg after 118 kilometers in the race, Balloni was the first on top and he thus wears the first jersey for the King of the Mountains classification of this Giro d'Italia 2012 tonight.

When the gap of the leading trio gets under 2 minutes at about 60 kilometers from the finish, they decide to relaunch the breakaway for the last time and their gap thus goes a bit up again. This doesn't last long however, because the peloton wants to get back on this breakaway. They so much want it that this leads to a crash in the peloton where everyone fights for a place.

The adventure of the three riders comes to an end just after they crossed the 40 kilometers to go arch and just after that, it's Lars Bak (Lotto-Belisol)'s turn to attack.

Encouraged by his local public, he manages to create a gap on the peloton and when he crosses the 30 kilometer sign, this gap already is up to 46 seconds. This value remains quite stable until about 25 kilometers from the finish when his gap starts to drop to values around 30 seconds. Little by little, the peloton comes back on the Danish rider and at 18 kilometers from the finish, he decides to stop his solo effort and he's taken back by this peloton at 17 kilometers from the finish.

Even though there's not much to say aboumt the last kilometers of the race, we suddenly saw the pink jersey, Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing Team), stopping at 8 kilometers from the finish. A problem with his chain prevents him from going on immediately after that and he thus has all the delay to catch up. To do so, he gets help from Danilo Wyss and from two other team mates who help him to get back in the peloton at 4.5 kilometers from the finish, which thus allows him to keep the pink jersey.

While approaching the finish line, we see a nervous peloton and in the last turn this leads to a new crash with Theo Bos (Rabobank) and due to this the sprint becomes rather chaotic.

Despite that, Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) manages to get firestarted all by himself and to win this second stage.

The classifications of the Giro d'Italia 2012 after the 2nd stage

The stage classification for the 2nd stage of the Tour of Italy 2012: Herning > Herning

Here's the top 10 of this 2nd stage of the Tour of Italy 2012:

1/ Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) - 4h53'12"
2/ Matthew Goss (Orica-GreenEDGE)
3/ Geoffrey Soupe (FDJ BigMat)
4/ Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Barracuda)
5/ Roberto Ferrari (Androni Giocattoli)
6/ Mark Renshaw (Rabobank)
7/ Thor Hushovd (BMC Racing Team)
8/ Daniele Bennati (Radioshack-Nissan)
9/ William Bonnet (FDJ BigMat)
10/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky)

The general classification of the Giro d'Italia 2012 after the 2nd stage

After this second stage, the general classification of the Giro d'Italia 2012 remains unchanged since the sprinters and other riders who ended at the first places today (and thus took bonus seconds) were quite far in this classification after yesterday's time trial. Phinney thus keeps his pink jersey for now:

1/ Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing Team) - 5h03'38"
2/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) - +0'09"
3/ Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Barracuda) - +0'13"
4/ Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank) - +0'15"
5/ Gustav Larsson (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - +0'22"

King of the Mountains classification

The order in which the riders passed the only difficulty of the day, the Østjerberg, gives the current KOM classification of the Giro d'Italia 2012 :

1/ Alfredo Balloni (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia) - 3 points
2/ Miguel Angel Rubiano (Androni Giocattoli) - 2 points
3/ Olivier Kaisen (Lotto-Belisol) - 1 point

Tomorrow's stage

Tomorrow, the third stage will be a 190 kilometer long stage with start and finish in Horssens in Denmark. This will be the last stage in Denmark, again a flat stage, with the race route forming 3 loops and with only one difficulty. If you'd like to know all details of this stage, please check out the article The Giro d'Italia 2012 race route on Google Maps/Google Earth, the profiles and the time- and route schedules.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Giro d Italia | Giro d'Italia 2012

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