Furlan Sprints to Stage Two Victory in Dauphine-Libere

Today's first road stage of the Dauphine-Libere took riders on a mainly flat 228-kilometer ride into the city of Dijon. With the stage being flat and coming before the major time-trial and mountain stages, it was conducive to a sprint finish.

Tom Boonen (QuickStep) was hoping for the win today to prove to his critics that he was still in the game. The Belgian sprinter has come under fire from the press and race organizers due to his second positive test for cocaine within a year's time.

Although the drug is not a banned substance by the anti-doping agency, like steroids or EPO, the negative attention has hurt Boonen and prevented him from starting many races. 

Right from the starting line, five riders tried their luck to outpace the peloton. Stéphane Augé (Cofidis), Alexandre Pichot (Bouygues Telecom), Paul Voss (Milram), Iñaki Isasi (Euskaltel-Euskadi), and Hector Gonzalez (Fuji-Servetto) established a ten-minute lead at one point because the peloton had to make a full stop to wait at a train crossing.

Race leader Cadel Evans had his Silence-Lotto team controlling the pace to work the break-away back in. If that break-away were not caught, one of those riders could easily steal the leader's jersey off the Australian's back.

The break-away disintegrated with about 30 kilometers remaining as riders tried to avoid their fate. Pichot and Augé were finally caught with six kilometers to go when the sprinters' teams took up the chase.

Next, a very dangerous move came out of the peloton. British time-trial champion David Millar (Garmin) shot out of the peloton and put his well-known break-away skills to work over the remaining five kilometers.

It looked like the Scottish rider would be able to hold off the charging peloton, but in a desperate catch, the sprinters surpassed Millar with only 35 meters remaining in the race.

Angelo Furlan (Lampre) took a surprise sprint win ahead of Markus Zberg (BMC Racing) and Tom Boonen (QuickStep).

Cadel Evans finished in the main pack to keep his lead going into tomorrow. Stage Three tomorrow into Saint-Etienne will most likely serve for a sprint finish again before the riders hit the time-trial on Stage Four and the high mountains on every stage thereafter.