Michael Albasini wins the second consecutive stage of the Volta a Catalunya 2012
Michael Albasini of Team GreenEdge claims his second consecutive victory of the season after winning the stage 2 of the Volta a Catalunya 2012.
He crossed the finish line in a fastest time of 3 hours, 52 minutes and 7 seconds to claim the top spot during the second day of racing in Spain.
It is the sixth victory for the World Tour debutant side after Simon Gerrans helped the team during the Milan-San Remo and the Santos Tour Under.
Dario Cataldo of Team Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Rigoberto Uran Uran of Team Sky achieved the second and the third positions in the respective order.
Damiano Cunego, Ryder Hesjedal, Sergio Pardilla Belllón and Arnold Jeannesson achieved the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh positions in the respective order.
The cyclist was delighted after crossing the finish line, he posted on the team’s website, "It was fantastic to win yesterday and have the leader's jersey today, to win a stage in the jersey is a good feeling”.
“I'm happy to pay back my teammates with one more victory after they worked so hard for me the whole day", he concluded.
Antonio Piedra Perez and Daniel Martin succeeded during the first and the second mountains of the stage while Julian Sanchez Pimienta and Jean Marc Marino claimed the first two sprints of the race.
Alejandro Valverde crashed towards the end of the stage and could not recover in time to challenge the top podium contenders.
"Just as we were heading out of the feed zone, there was a bottle on the road, the front wheel got over it and I crashed on my right side against a curb," said Valverde.
He added, “I got on my feet again but I was feeling mostly dizzy after the crash and I lost some time prior to departing again”.
Albasini has now tightened his strength on the general classifications with a lead of 1 minute and 32 seconds over Ryder Hesjedal.
Mikael Cherel, Steve Morabito and Arnold Jeannesson claimed the next three positions after the stage 2 classifications.
Michael is now targeting the overall classifications and with five more stages to go, he is definitely amongst the favourites to claim his first overall victory of the season.
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