Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) got his revenge for yesterday's disappointment when the Frenchman won today's 2nd stage of the Tour of Beijing in convincing fashion. Having been perfectly led out by Dominique Rollin, he had no trouble holding off Roberto Ferrari (Lampre-Merida) and Mitchell Docker (Orica-GreenEDGE) to take both his 10th win of the season and the leader's jersey in the Chinese race.

Nacer Bouhanni was hugely disappointed yesterday when poor positioning made him unable to contend for the win despite being clearly the fastest sprinter in the Tour of Beijing. Today he made up for the defeat when he took a hugely convincing win on the second day of the final WorldTour race of the season.

When the peloton powered along inside the final 2km to go Orica-GreenEDGE had taken control while Bouhanni and his teammates were nowhere to be seen. Jens Mouris (Orica-GreenEDGE) took a corner way faster than his teammates and suddenly the Dutchman had gapped the peloton.

Apparently, no one was able to close the gap to the leading rider. That was when FDJ decided to kick into action with Dominique Rollin moving forward with Bouhanni on his wheel. The Canadian lead-out man reeled Mouris in and delivered his French sprinter perfectly. When he opened his sprint, no one was even close to challenging the fast sprinter who took a hugely convincing win ahead of Roberto Ferrari who had to be content with following wheels while Mitchell Docker completed the podium.

With the win, Bouhanni takes 10 bonus seconds and so is now equal on time with stage 1 winner Thor Hushovd. However, the Norwegian finished far down the ranking and so he has to hand over his leader's jersey to Bouhanni who was 8th yesterday and so leads the race on a count-back.

Bouhanni now takes his narrow lead into tomorrow's 3rd stage which is a far hillier affair. 7 climbs - the last one coming just 11km from the finish - should produce the first separation ahead of Monday's big queen stage.

The longest stage

The 201,5km second stage was the longest of the race and more difficult than yesterday's opener. 4 climbs were set to challenge the riders but as the final one was located 51km from the finish and followed by a long flat stretch, most expected a bunch sprint at the end.

That expectation meant that there was very little interest in getting into the early breakaway. Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil), Olivier Kaisen (Lotto Belisol), Maxime Bouet (Ag2r), Chad Beyer (Champion System) and Massimo Graziatio (Lampre-Merida) escaped almost from the gun and were allowed to build up a gap of more than 4 minutes. The BMC team of race leader Hushovd started to control things and Martin Kohler and Lawrence Warbasse kept a stable gap between the 4- and 5-minute marks for most of the day.

Battle for KOM points

In the front group, there was a fierce battle for KOM points on the early climbs and De Gendt clearly showed that he was the strongest in the uphill sprints. On the first three ascents, he beat Beyer and so takes over the mountains jersey from previous leader Sander Cordeel (Lotto Belisol).

Bouet was on another mission. The Ag2r rider hopes to finish high on GC and made sure to win the first two intermediate sprints to pick up 6 bonus seconds. Once again Beyer had to be content with 2nd in both battles for points and seconds.

The gap comes down

With 80km to go, Argos-Shimano decided that it was time to assist BMC and so they asked Yan Dong Xing to join Kohler and Warbasse in their hard work. The team was hopeful that Luka Mezgec would be able to improve on Friday's 2nd place. They brought the gap down to around 2 minutes.

With 56km to go, the riders hit the final climb of the day and that was too much for Graziato who immediately fell behind. De Gendt was also in difficulty but managed to close the gap.

The break splits up

There was now no longer much cooperation in the front group which suddenly split up with De Gendt and Kaisen leaving Beyer and Bouet behind. The latter made a strong acceleration to bridge across to the leaders and continued past the duo. Kaisen increased his tempo and the Belgian managed to join Bouet to form a front duo.

Beyer and De Gendt dug deep as they tried to get back but were unable to do so and a big gap started to open up. Meanwhile, the peloton had been rolling cautiously along on the lower slopes of the climb but when BMC had been reassured that no big fireworks were in store, they put Stephen Cummings on the front and the Briton made sure to maintain a 2.05 gap on the top.

BMC in control

Graziato was now back in the peloton which sped down the short descent. When they hit the flat final stretch, Kohler, Warbasse and Marco Pinotti hit the front and those three riders combined forces to set a fast pace for BMC. They were later joined by Xing who had been dropped on the climb but managed to get back to the front to do some work

With 34km to go, Bouet won the final intermediate sprint uncontested and so had picked up 9 seconds to move into the virtual 2nd place on GC. With no more intermediate sprints on offer, he gave Kaisen a small push and decided to fall back to the peloton after taking a short natural break. A few moments later, De Gendt and Beyer were caught by the peloton while Bouet was back in the fold shortly after that.

The gap comes down

Kaisen was now the lone leader with a 2.30 gap over the peloton. With 20km to go, Omega Pharma-Quick Step decided that it was time to up the speed and so they put Michal Golas on the front. The Pole combined forces with Kohler and Pinotti and the gap was now coming down quickly.

With 15km to go, the gap was already down to 51 seconds and a few moments later Cummings and Matthias Frank took over the pace-setting for BMC. The duo did a good job and caught Kaisen with 8km to go.

Trains start to form

Now Omega Pharma-Quick Step took control with Julien Vermote taking a big turn on the front. Argos-Shimano also moved up and for a long time, the two teams formed competing trains in both sides of the roads.

With 2km to go, Orica-GreenEDGE did what they did yesterday. They hit the front with Luke Durbridge who strung things out before leaving the work to teammate Mouris. A few moments later, the Dutchman had created a small gap which forced FDJ to kick into action. Rollin closed the gap before launching Bouhanni's furious sprint.

Result:

1. Nacer Bouhanni 4.59.49

2. Roberto Ferrari

3. Mitchell Docker

4. Matti Breschel

5. Alessandro Petacchi

6. Barry Markus

7. Jonas Vangenechten

8. Steele Von Hoff

9. Luka Mezgec

10. Elia Viviani

General classification:

1. Nacer Bouhanni 9.20.13

2. Thor Hushovd

3. Maxime Bouet +0.01

4. Willem Wauters +0.03

5. Luka Mezgec +0.04

6. Roberto Ferrari

7. Chad Beyer +0.05

8. Nikolas Maes +0.06

9. Mitchell Docker

10. Olivier Kaisen +0.07

Points classification:

1. Nacer Bouhanni 23

2. Alessandro Petacchi 23

3. Luka Mezgec 21

4. Roberto Ferrari 20

5. Jonas Vangenechten 16

Mountains classification:

1. Thomas De Gendt 25

2. Chad Beyer 17

3. Olivier Kaisen 16

4. Maxime Bouet 9

5. Massimo Graziato 6

Youth classification:

1. Nacer Bouhanni 9.20.13

2. Willem Wauters +0.03

3. Luka Mezgec +0.04

4. Rüdiger Selig +0.10

5. Michael Matthews

Teams classification:

1. Katusha 28.01.09

2. Vacansoleil

3. FDJ

4. Omega Pharma-Quick Step

5. Orica-GreenEDGE