Cavendish takes overall lead in Giro d'Italia
Alessandro Petacchi won a mass sprint Sunday to take the second stage of the Giro d'Italia, with Mark Cavendish finishing second to take the overall lead.
The Lampre rider finished the longest stage of the Giro in five hours 45 minutes 40 seconds after completing a 244-kilometre ride from Alba to Parma. Cavendish beat Manuel Belletti of Colnago for second place, with the Italian settling for third.
Tour de France champion Alberto Contador finished in the main pack, placing 29th in the same time.
Cavendish took over the pink jersey from his HTC-Highroad teammate Marco Pinotto, who won the first stage.
Cavendish said Petacchi impeded him in the sprint by changing direction three times, but the Italian brushed away the claims.
"To be honest, the only thing that I noticed is that when I saw him coming up before the sprint, I let him pass along the barriers," Petacchi said. "I could have closed the door, but I didn't."
Cavendish has an overall time of 6:06.27 to lead HTC-Highroad teammates Kanstantsin Sivtsov of Belarus and Craig Lewis of the U.S. by 12 seconds.
Toronto's Michael Barry, who rides for Sky Procycling, finished 24th and is 50th overall.
Contador is 42 seconds behind Cavendish in 41st.
The Spaniard is competing at the Giro while his doping case is being appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
He tested positive for clenbuterol while winning the 2010 Tour, but was cleared of doping by the Spanish cycling federation after he blamed the result on eating contaminated beef. Cycling's governing body and the World Anti-Doping Agency have appealed to the CAS, which is expected to issue a ruling before this year's Tour in July.
Sebastien Lang of Omega took the early initiative when he broke away after only three kilometres and opened up a lead of 20 minutes.
The chasing pack eventually reeled him in 26 kilometres from the finish, but only after he had taken the first lot of points on offer for the intermediate sprint and the mountain jersey.
An eight-man group then tried to pull away and built a lead of 30 seconds, but was caught by the pack with eight kilometres to go.
The 21-stage Giro finishes in Milan on May 29.