Italy's Danilo Napolitano was the victor in a sprint finish to Monday's ninth stage of the 2007 Giro d'Italia, a 177km run from Reggio Emilia to Lido di Camaiore.
Napolitano, riding for the Lampre-Fondital team, edged Australian Robbie McEwen into second while another Italian rider, Alessandro Petacchi, finished third.
T-Mobile rider Marco Pinotti of Italy retained the leader's pink jersey as the race prepares to head into the mountains on Tuesday.
Nicolas Crosbie, Frederic Bessy, Andrei Kunitski and Simone Masciarelli were the riders who featured at the sharp end in the early stages.
With 24km to go the gap was down to less than two minutes with the peloton closing and in the final 7km the leaders were caught just before arriving in Viareggio, the seaside home town of football icons Marcello Lippi and Pierluigi Collina.
The breakaway finally failed after the leaders had spent 100km on their own and the stage was set for a sprint finish.
Julian Dean of New Zealand led the peloton into the last kilometre.
Petacchi went for glory and looked as if he had the stage in the bag but Napolitano timed his run to perfection to claim the stage.
Tuesday's 10th stage sees the beginning of the mountain runs that are likely to go a long way to deciding the outcome of the race that will finish in Milan on June 3.
The 230km ride will see the peloton leave Lido di Camaiore in tight formation but by the time they arrive at the finish at the Santuario Nostra Signora Della Guardia they will have been tested to the limit.
