Sweet vengeance for German sprinter.

A powerful sprint from Kittel, who even found the time to raise his arms in celebration as he crossed the line, secured the stage win for the German sprinter, who missed out on yesterday’s sprint finish due to an unfortunate puncture. Italian Elia Viviani did well to finish second on the day and seize the leader’s yellow jersey, but he never seriously threatened to overhaul the flying Kittel on the uphill finish.

Kittel timed his effort to perfection even though his Argos-Shimano train disintegrated under the thrust of Offredo's (FDJ) acceleration with 800 metres to go, but Kittel had the composure to sit in behind Romain Feillu, and leave his effort as late as possible. Once he leaped to the front with 200 metres to go, however, the result was never in doubt.

Up until the sprint finish, the stage had been rather uneventful, the strong headwind preventing two attempts at breaking away from the peloton from evolving into more than mere distractions for the peloton.

For yesterday’s winner, French champion Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ), disaster struck as he crashed and landed on his face with 60 km remaining. Bouhanni was able to sit up straight and receive treatment, but his race was over there and then.

Result stage 2:

1 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Team Argos-Shimano
2 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling
3 Leigh Howard (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge
4 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana Pro Team
5 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
6 Gianni Meersman (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step
7 Romain Feillu (Fra) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
8 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Belisol
9 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Movistar Team
10 Tony Gallopin (Fra) RadioShack Leopard

General classification:

1 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale
2 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Omega Pharma-QuickStep 00:07”
3 Damien Gaudin (Fra) Europcar 00:08”
4 Lieuwe Westra (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM 00:09”
5 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Merida 00:10”
6 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Blanco Pro Cycling
7 Geoffrey Soupe (Fra) FDJ
8 Peter Velits (Svk) Omega Pharma-QuickStep 00:11”
9 Tony Gallopin (Fra) RadioShack Leopard
10 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana