Fabio Felline wins second stage at Tour of the Basque Country

ByReuters

Updated 07/04/2015 at 18:39 GMT

Fabio Felline (Trek Factory Racing) came out on top in the second stage of Tour of the Basque Country after edging a sprint finish against opening stage winner Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge).

Fabio Felline

Image credit: AFP

Italian sprinter Felline won despite the six climbs on the 175.4km run from Bilbao to Vitoria, the longest day of the six-stage race.

Tuesday's start was delayed by a five-minute long rider protest about the dangerous finishing straight to stage one that led to a peloton crash.

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The protest was organised by the Association of Professional Cyclists (CPA), who were incensed that a series of green metal poles that caused the crash had been marked out only by placing an orange traffic cone on top of them.

Safety at cycling races has been in the news in recent days after two riders had to abandon the Tour of Flanders on Sunday following incidents involving crashes with neutral service cars.

There were no serious incidents in Tuesday's stage as Felline sealed his first victory at WorldTour level and his first sprint victory since 2013.

Michael Matthews retains the yellow jersey and the overall lead after winning the opening stage loop to Bilbao, with Michal Kwiatkowski second and Felline third on the same time of 8:29:39.

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Stage Two Results

1 Fabio Felline (Ita) Trek Factory Racing 4:32:32

2 Michael Matthews (Aus) Orica GreenEdge (Same time)

3 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal (Same time)

4 Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Etixx - Quick-Step (Same time)

5 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) BMC Racing Team (Same time)

6 Kévin Reza (Fra) FDJ.fr (Same time)

7 Julien Simon (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits (Same time)

8 Pello Bilbao (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA (Same time)

9 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Astana Pro Team (Same time)