Furlan sprints to 1st win of season in Dauphine Libere’s 2nd stage; Evans keeps overall lead

Furlan of Italy wins Dauphine Libere’s 2nd stage

DIJON, France — Angelo Furlan won the second stage of the Dauphine Libere in a sprint finish on Monday and Cadel Evans finished with the pack to keep the overall lead of the Tour de France warmup.

Furlan came from behind at the end to edge Markus Zberg of Switzerland and Tom Boonen of Belgium for his first victory of the season. The Italian won in an unofficial time of 5 hours, 35 minutes, 4 seconds for the 142-mile leg from Nancy to Dijon.

“We were not the favorites of this stage because the other teams had a lot of sprinters in their ranks,” the 31-year-old Lampre rider said after winning the longest stage of the race. “We were aiming for a podium finish.”

Evans maintained his eight-second lead over 2007 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador. Fellow Spaniard Alejandro Valverde remained third, 23 seconds behind Evans.

Contador will ride in next month’s Tour on the same Astana team as seven-time champion Lance Armstrong. Evans, an Australian, has been runner-up at the Tour for the past two years.

Boonen returned to competition last week in a small Belgian race after being suspended by his QuickStep team following a positive test for cocaine.

Tuesday’s stage takes the riders on a 113-mile run from Tournus to Saint-Etienne. The race ends Sunday in Grenoble.