Tom Boonen consolidated his hold on the green points jersey today after claiming his second successive stage victory in the 2005 Tour de France today with a thrilling burst for the line in Tours.
Yesterday, he profited from a badly-timed break by Australian Robbie McEwen and today he again read the race exactly right, powering free of a frighteningly unstable bunch sprint.
"It's difficult to win a stage here at Tours in the Tour, " the 24-year-old told Eurosport.
"It's an extremely hard finish. If you start too late, it's all over and I waited a long, long time.
"I was a little nervous but I was okay. I felt pretty calm until the last kilometre."
Boonen is now clear leader in the points standing for the sprinters' green jersey, and took to the road today dressed head to foot in emerald, while David Zabriskie hung on to the yellow jersey.
The Utah-born Team CSC rider, who took the race lead in Saturday's time-trial, stayed two seconds ahead of six-time winner Lance Armstrong with both men finishing in the peloton.
That could have changed after tomorrow's team time-trial with Zabriskie's CSC and Armstrong's Discovery both expected to do well.
Boonen's victory came after an heroically long break from Erik Dekker of Rabobank, Nicolas Portal of AG2R and Saunier's Rubens Bertogliati.
However, there was some reward for Dutchman Dekker, who moved into the lead in the King of the Mountains category.
The trio made their move with around 180 kilometres of the 212.5km from La Chataigneraie to Tours still to race but it was a good day to test the resolve of the peloton.
McEwen was belatedly disqualified from the third stage of the following his third place.
The Australian, of the Davitamon team, was ruled to have barged his way past compatriot Stuart O'Grady in a dramatic bunch sprint to the finish line.
McEwen was relegated to the back of the peloton while O'Grady moved up to take third place behind Austrian Peter Wrolich of the Gerolsteiner.
