Diego Ulissi edges leader Simon Gerrans to stage two victory

Diego Ulissi emerged victorious on stage two at the Santos Tour Down Under after winning the sprint into Stirling.

The Italian Lampre-Merida rider timed his kick to perfection on the right-hand side of the road to surprise a number of more established fast finishers.


Race leader Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) hesitated momentarily in the final metres but still proved equal to the task, claiming more bonus seconds as he finished second, just off the wheel of Ulissi.
The result saw the Australian national champion open out his overall advantage to seven seconds over his new rival, with Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) a further four seconds adrift after failing to influence the sprint.
Cadel Evans kicked hard but the BMC Racing rider had to be content with third place on the day.

Team Sky's Geraint Thomas was among a number of riders to be held up by a late crash inside 3km to go, with the Welshman ultimately earning the same finishing time as the peloton, placing him 17 seconds off Gerrans overall.
Gerrans said afterwards: "It was great to grab a few more seconds there, finishing second. But hats off to Ulissi, he timed that perfectly. He got the jump on us with a bit over 100m to go, and we couldn't quite catch him again.

"I'm definitely satisfied with getting time bonuses. It would have been nice to get another stage win today, but you can't win them all."

A breakaway proved more difficult to instigate than the day before, but 10km into the 150km stage, three men headed clear out of Prospect, ensuring no bonus seconds were on offer to the general classification contenders at the day's intermediate sprints.