Double stage winner Peter Sagan (Cannondale) was defeated on the second stage of the Tour of Alberta by young BMC stagiaire Silvan Dillier who became a surprise winner on the third day of racing in Canada. The Swiss joined forces with Sergei Tvetchov (Jelly Belly) after a very hectic start to the race and held off the fast-moving peloton while Sagan won the sprint for 3rd to defend his leader's jersey.

People had speculated whether Peter Sagan would be able to win all six stages of the inaugural edition of the Canadian stage race Tour of Alberta but those thoughts was put on hold by a young stagiaire. Silvan Dillier made it into a two-man breakaway on stage 2 and as the peloton failed to catch them, Dillier and his companio Sergei Tvetchov had to decide the stage in a sprint.

Diliier proved the talent that had allowed him to win the Tour de Normandie earlier this year when he beat Tvetchov in the sprint to take a very rare stagiarire win in a big professional race. As expected, Sagan won the bunch sprint but this time, he had to settle for 3rd.

The bunch managed to limit their time loss sufficiently for Sagan to defend his leader's jersey and so he overcame the threat that was posed by the duo of youngsters. The Slovakian takes his lead into tomorrow's third stage which is mostly flat but contains a tough climb that will be tackled twice along the way. From the last passage, 39km of descending and flat roads remain and so a bunch sprint is the likely outcome.

A fast start

The 174,8km 2nd stage was mostly flat but had a categorized climb 26km from the finish. From there, the remainder of the stage was flat and it finished off with 3 laps on a 4km circuit in Red Deer.

The race was off to an extremely fast start with numerous attacks being launched in the early part of the race. The riders were assisted by a strong tailwind and during the first hour they covered no less than 51km.

De Luna attacks from the gun

Flavio De Luna (Smartstop) attacked from the gun but the Mexican was quickly brought back. Instead, David Millar (Garmin), Ben Day (UnitedHealthCare) and Frank Pipp (Bissell) took off, the latter falling off the pace after a little while.

BMC didn't allow the move to get anywhere and instead, Ben Chaddock (Smartstop) and David Williams (5-Hour) got clear. The two continental riders didn't get before and were countered by a very strong group.

A dangerous group

Rohan Dennis (Garmin), Damiano Caruso (Cannondale), Marcus Burghardt (BMC), Tobias Ludvigsson (Argos), Jack Bobridge (Belkin), Aldo Ilesic (Unitedhealthcare) and Tvetchov built up a 10-second gap but with Dennis an Ludvigsson sitting in 2nd and 3rd on GC respectively, Cannondale was in no mood to allow the a bigger time gap. The Italian brought it back together and the subsequent counterattack from Michael Woods (Garneau) had also no success.

Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly), James Stemoer (5-Hour) and Day tried the next move that was quickly reeled in, only to be replaced by a duo consisting of Francisco Mancebo (5-Hour) and Bruno Langlois (Garneau). That move was similarly ill-fated as BMC and Garmin brought things back together.

Puncture for Sagan

Just before the day's first intermediate sprint, Sagan was unfortunate to puncture and his nearest rival Dennis exploited the situation to win the sprint and pick up 3 bonus seconds. Moments later a dangerous 12-rider group consisting of Steve Morabito (BMC), Fumiyuki Beppu (Orica-GreenEDGE), William Clarke (Argos), Steven Kruijswijk (Belkin), Clinto Avery (Champion System), Chris Jones (Unitedhealthcare), Jason McCartney (Bissell), Kirk Carlsen (Bissell), Langlous, Kristoffer Dahl (SmartStop), Travis Mccabe (Smartstop) and Williams moved clar but it was too dangerous to allow any leeway.

Eric Young (Optum) beat Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Patrick Gretsch (Argos) in the second and final intermediate sprint. Shortly after, Tvetchov and Dillier attacked and by now, the peloton had had enough of the aggressive racing. They stopped for a natural break, allowing the gap to grow to almost 6 minutes.

A chase is organized

Cannondale, Argos-Shimano and Optum started to chase but the advantage only came down slowly. With 40km to go, the gap was still more than 4 minutes and so Garmin joined forces with Cannondale in their quest to neutralize the move.

On the day's only climb, Argos-Shimano took control and on the top a small 20-rider group had moved ahead. It came back together on the descent but with a 2.10 gap and more than 20km to go the situation appeared to be under control.

The gap stabilizes

However, the hard day had taken its toll on the chasing team and they struggled to make further inroads into the advantage. Unitedhealthcare moved to the front but when the escapees started the final 4km lap, they were still 1.25 ahead.

It was now clear that the stage winner would be one of the brave breakaway riders and they were set to decide the win in a sprint. Dillier emerged as the fastest and took a beautiful stage win. Sagan had no trouble winning the bunch sprint for 3rd and even opened a 2-second gap at the finish. As the gap had come down to just 16 seconds, the Slovakian comfortably defended his race lead.

Result:

1. Silvain Dillier

2. Serghei Tvetchov

3. Peter Sagan +0.16

4. Aidis Krupis +0.18

5. Luka Mezgec

6. Nikolai Brøchner

7. Eric Young

8. Travis Mccabe

9. Dennis Van Winden

10. Jeremy Vennell

General classification:

1. Peter Sagan 7.03.34

2. Rohan Dennis +0.26

3. Tobias Ludvigsson +0.28

4. Cadel Evans +0.36

5. Brent Bookwalter +0.37

6. Pieter Weening +0.43

7. Patrick Gretsch +0.44

8. Tom Zirbel +0.46

9. Ryder Hesjedal

10. Robert Gesink +0.47