Robbie McEwen won the second stage of the Giro d'Italia on Sunday, crossing the line ahead of world champion Paolo Bettini and Milram’s Alessandro Petacchi. Despite an early breakaway and some attacks in the latest climb, the sprinters held on and the bunch cruised in the final downhill to a mass sprint finish.

The stage was characterised by a five-man breakaway only 16 miles into the stage; the last survivor of those riders, Russian Pavel Brutt of Tinkoff, was chased down successfully in the last climb by counter-attackers Emanuele Sella of Panaria and Pablo Lastras of Caisse d’Epargne. But the trio were absorbed back by the bunch with four miles to go.

Milram’s train tried to launch Petacchi’s sprint, but McEwen held on to the Italian’s wheel and surged in the end to claim victory. Bettini confirmed that he’s in good shape, crossing the line just behind the Australian sprinter.

A fall with less than a mile to go divided the main bunch into groups and pink jersey Enrico Gasparotto was in one of the groups that crossed the line some time after the first group, so his teammate and captain Danilo Di Luca is the new leader thanks to a better classification in Sunday’s stage. One of the riders who went down in the big fall was Andrea Tonti of Quickstep; he seemed to have had the worst of the fall as he was carried away to hospital.

Two other riders dropped out of the race earlier. Canadian Michael Barry of T-Mobile didn’t start because of fever and German Volker Ordowski of Gerolsteiner dropped out after 75 miles.

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