Britain’s Mark Cavendish retained the race leader’s pink jersey on Sunday after Alessandro Petacchi of LPR won stage two of the Tour of Italy at Trieste.

Petacchi just edged out Cavendish, who had taken the opening honors with his Colombia colleagues on Saturday in the team time-trial at the Venice Lido.

Briton Ben Swift placed third Sunday pushing Australian Allan Davis out of the podium places with American Tyler Farrar fifth after the 156 km ride.

Explaining how he had timed his run for the line just right Petacchi said:
“I was on Cavendish’s wheel. I had been asking myself for several days how to beat him. We’d never previously gone head to head in a sprint. He’s a great champion”.

Having missed last year’s Giro through a doping suspension, Petacchi returned in some style as the 35-year-old landed his 25th stage success in the event overall – though the official tally stands at 20 with the remainder scrubbed from the record owing to his doping offense.

A late pile-up saw one of the top overall favorites for glory, Ivan Basso, lose 13 seconds on the road from Jesolo to Trieste.

Belgian Philippe Gilbert, aided and abetted by Italians Filippo Pozzato and Enrico Gasparotto, tried to escape 4.5 km out but were rapidly reined in.

Another Italian, Leonardo Scarselli, had made an early push for the front after just 9km but was then overhauled on the first of three final 11km-long circuits having enjoyed an 8min 20sec lead at the 51km mark.

German Matthias Russ fell on that same circuit and withdrew.

Monday’s third stage is a 198 km ride from Grado to Valdobbiadene, before the racers contemplate the approach to the mountain stages.