Intro:

Matteo Pelucchi timed his sprint perfectly to win Thursday's second stage of the week-long Tirreno-Adriatico.

Britain's Mark Cavendish finished in lowly 17th but still retains the overall lead.

Script:

Day two of the Tirreno-Adriatico and Mark Cavendish started out from San Vincenzo with the 'maglia azzurra' of the overall leader.

Five riders broke clear early on and swiftly built a lead of five minutes.

The peloton began to reel in the escape bunch as they approached Cascina for the first of two laps of the 20-kilometre finishing circuit, although the quintet still had a lead of over three minutes.

David De La Cruz was the first to be caught as Alex Dowsett went clear at the front of the break.

A crash 13 kilometres from the finish brought down several riders.

Predictably, Dowsett was caught with just under seven kilometres remaining.

Another crash with 2.5 kilometres left took out Marcel Kittel, who threw his bike down in frustration.

Into the closing stages and Arnaud Demare looked to be on course for victory.

But after making his move 100 metres from the line, Matteo Pelucchi came off Andre Greipel's wheel to snatch the win on the line.

Three hours 56 minutes and 12 seconds the winning mark.

Mark Cavendish finished a disappointing 17th but remains in the overall lead after he and his Omega Pharma-Quick Step team won a time trial to open the race on Wednesday.

Cavendish, Michal Kwiatkowski and Rigoberto Uran all have the same aggregate time of four hours 16 minutes and 25 seconds.

"Yeah, I was on the limit there, even before the sprint even started. But nice sprint, I am happy with the form, really happy with how the team rode, to be fair, today. And yeah, we will live to fight another day."

The race continues on Friday with the 210-kilometre third stage, from Cascina to Arezzo.