World champion Mark Cavendish won the second stage of the week-long Tirreno-Adriatico race in a sprint finish on Thursday, while Australian Matthew Goss held on to the overall lead.

The British Sky rider beat Spain’s Oscar Freire and Tyler Farrar of the United States in a bunch sprint finish.

Goss, whose GreenEdge team won Wednesday’s opening stage team time trial, retained the overall leader’s jersey with the same time as three of his teammates, 13 seconds clear of Cavendish in fifth place.

Cavendish, who recorded his fourth victory of the season, was fortunate to be in the leading group around two kilometres from the end when a crash in the middle of the peloton brought around 100 riders to a standstill.

The stage was ridden at an almost leisurely pace before accelerating markedly towards the end.

Italian pair Stefano Pirazzi, of Colnago, and Farnese’s Diego Caccia spent 200km off the front but never managed to eke out more than an eight-minute gap and were comfortably chased down by GreenEdge.

The crash left a group of about 70 riders to compete for the stage win with Farrar launching the sprint only for the Manxman to come speeding past to snatch victory.

Friday’s third stage takes the peloton over 178km from Indicatore to Terni in the race of the ‘Two Seas’.