With the 1st stage settled by Wikipedia, it's now time for the remaining flat stages. As said in the thread for stage 1, much will probably be decided by the wind - so if you're favourite, you need to stay at the front, being protected.

Anyway: The favourites for not only the stage, but also the race overall, are the top sprinters. In this race, Tom Boonen, Daniele Bennati and Maxime Vantomme are the top favourites with Steegmans, Davis, Serebriakov, Guillen and Crocket being the 'runner ups'.

This stage started off with an amazing amount of riders wanting to escape from the peloton. For whatever reason, Wikipedia didn't seem to want anyone to leave the peloton, thus increasing the pace dramatically. And as expected, there was lots of wind on this stage, and thay combined resulted in a splitted peloton.
Luckily for all those caught in the 2nd group, Wikipedia's Yellow Jersey, Matthieu Sprick, were also left by his team mates which meant that they had to stop the chase, and the groups rejoined. Shortly after, the break was caught.


With 100 km to go, a break finally settled. At first, it consisted of two riders, Millar and Ford. They were later joined by Ladagnous, Mironov, Nolf, Reckweg and Barth.


Wikipedia did seem to have everything under control, though, and with 30 km to go, the breakaway riders were caught. Instead, a few other teams agreed to up the pace to add some pressure in the wind - succesfully. Once again, Sprick was caught in the 2nd group, meaning that all the Wikipedia riders went back to help him up - unsuccesfully. A gap was created leaving top riders such as Vaitkus, Bonnet, Breschel and A. Rasmussen behind.


In front, the sprint trains started getting ready, and apparently, it was 2 vs. 2 vs. 2. American Suzuki had 1 train (Borghesi, Davis), White Bear Steyr with 1 (Bileka, Croket) and Rabobank with 1 (Steegmans and someone else).


With a strong finish, Boonen did his best, but he was nowhere near the top competitors for this stage - Steegmans and Croket. In what seemed like an easy sprint, Croket took the stage win - and the leaders shirt, the points shirt and the youth shirt. Amazing start for White Bear Steyr!


Stage Result:

1	Lars Croket	White Bear - Wild Horse	3h11'03
2	Gert Steegmans	Rabobank	s.t.
3	Tom Boonen	Warner Brothers	s.t.
4	Allan Davis	American Suzuki	s.t.
5	Maxime Vantomme	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
6	Daniele Bennati	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
7	Aleksandr Serebriakov	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
8	Vladimir Bileka	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
9	Fabio Borghesi	American Suzuki	s.t.
10	Ahmad Haidar Anuawar	M&M Cycling	s.t.
11	Eros Capecchi	Rabobank	s.t.
12	Matteo Bono	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
13	Hervé Duclos-Lassalle	Rabobank	s.t.
14	Jean-Patrick Nazon	M&M Cycling	s.t.
15	Yannick Talabardon	Warner Brothers	s.t.
16	Wouter Weylandt	Warner Brothers	s.t.
17	Michael Mørkøv	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
18	Rafael Rodríguez Segarra	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
19	Ivan Kovalev	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
20	Michiel Van Aelbroeck	Rabobank	s.t.
21	Pim Ligthart	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
22	Mathieu Heijboer	Rabobank	s.t.
23	Sébastien Rosseler	Warner Brothers	s.t.
24	Dennis Van Winden	La Gazzetta dello Sport	+ 1'31
25	Alberto Loddo	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
26	Matti Breschel	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
27	Borut Bozic	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
28	Fumiyuki Beppu	M&M Cycling	s.t.
29	Alex Rasmussen	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
30	Mirko Lorenzetto	M&M Cycling	s.t.
31	Ismaël Kip	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
32	Aleksandr Mironov	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
33	Michael Ford	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
34	Jurgen Van Loocke	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
35	Ahmed Ahmed	Warner Brothers	s.t.
36	Martin Pedersen	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
37	Anuar Manan	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
38	Diego Ulissi	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
39	Khayabkhyrvaa Uugunbayar	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
40	Blaise Sonnery	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
41	Anthony José Brea	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
42	Anthony Lavoine	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
43	Marco Guillén	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
44	Tomas Vaitkus	M&M Cycling	s.t.
45	Kam-po Wong	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
46	Óscar Avelino	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
47	Tom Veelers	Team B&O	s.t.
48	Samuel Dumoulin	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
49	William Bonnet	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
50	Mathieu Perget	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
51	Christian Poos	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
52	Sergio Marinangeli	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
53	Evgeni Popov	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
54	David Vitoria	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
55	William Walker	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
56	Gatis Smukulis	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
57	Bradley McGee	American Suzuki	s.t.
58	Manuel Antonio Cardoso	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
59	Maurice Schreurs	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
60	Michael Faerk Christensen	Team B&O	s.t.
61	Angelo Furlan	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
62	Eric Berthou	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
63	Logan Hutchings	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
64	Sven Nooytens	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
65	Kin-San Wu	American Suzuki	s.t.
66	Jackson Rodríguez	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
67	Matthieu Ladagnous	American Suzuki	s.t.
68	Michael Schär	Rabobank	s.t.
69	Ivan Stevic	Wikipedia	s.t.
70	Juan-Antonio Flecha	Warner Brothers	s.t.
71	Casper Jørgensen	Team B&O	s.t.
72	Benoît Vaugrenard	American Suzuki	s.t.
73	Marcel Kittel	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
74	Dmitri Kozontchuk	Rabobank	s.t.
75	Ramunas Navardauskas	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
76	Valerio Agnoli	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
77	Sergio Ortega	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
78	Christoph Mai	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
79	Aleksandr Khatuntsev	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
80	Pavel Brutt	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
81	Ananias Ananias	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.
82	Ian Stannard	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
83	Matej Mugerli	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
84	Martijn Keizer	Wikipedia	s.t.
85	Michiel Elijzen	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
86	Rick Flens	La Gazzetta dello Sport	s.t.
87	Luigi Sestili	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
88	Nico Keinath	Team B&O	s.t.
89	Tom Leezer	SIC Radical - Timberland	s.t.
90	Steve Morabito	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
91	Jens Mouris	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
92	Jacob Fiedler	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
93	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.
94	Kevin Hulsmans	Warner Brothers	s.t.
95	Nico Sijmens	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
96	Lars Tommersen	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
97	Dimitri Champion	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
98	Maxime Bouet	Team B&O	s.t.
99	Nick Clesen	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
100	Sergey Sarkisov	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.
101	Roman Kilun	Wikipedia	s.t.
102	Alberigo Passalacqua	M&M Cycling	s.t.
103	Carlos Castaño	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
104	Andreas Klier	American Suzuki	s.t.
105	David Herrero Llorente	Wikipedia	s.t.
106	Matthieu Sprick	Wikipedia	s.t.
107	Jérôme Baugnies	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
108	Arnaud Coyot	Lipton Ice Tea	s.t.
109	Vladimir Miholjevic	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
110	Thomas De Gendt	Team B&O	s.t.
111	Drasutis Stundzia	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
112	Mikayil Grebinyuk	M&M Cycling	s.t.
113	Sébastien Ivars	Wikipedia	s.t.
114	Laurent Mangel	Crédit Lyonnais	s.t.
115	Christian Meier	Wikipedia	s.t.
116	Yoann Offredo	Rabobank	s.t.
117	Peter Williams	THE CONTROL TEAM	s.t.
118	Aleksandr Bespalov	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
119	Jan Hopman	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
120	William Ford	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
121	Marcel Barth	Accumalux-Huez	s.t.
122	David Millar	British Airways - Martini	s.t.
123	Roman Kreuziger	Team B&O	+ 3'15
124	Sergei Kolesnikov	Warner Brothers	s.t.
125	Daniele Di Nucci	M&M Cycling	+ 4'53
126	Christophe Kern	Philips - Hummel	s.t.
127	Roman Maksimov	White Bear - Wild Horse	s.t.
128	Frederik Nolf	Festina - Seiko	s.t.
129	Morten Reckweg	Team B&O	s.t.
130	Danny Pate	Wikipedia	+ 5'25
131	Rafaâ Chtioui	Accumalux-Huez	+ 7'01
132	Frank Picoreau	American Suzuki	+ 7'41

Overall Classification:

1	Lars Croket	White Bear - Wild Horse	3h25'28
2	Aleksandr Serebriakov	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	+ 8
3	Pim Ligthart	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	s.t.
4	Ivan Kovalev	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	+ 13
5	Gert Steegmans	Rabobank	s.t.
6	Rafael Rodríguez Segarra	La Gazzetta dello Sport	+ 14
7	Matteo Bono	La Gazzetta dello Sport	+ 16
8	Daniele Bennati	La Gazzetta dello Sport	+ 17
9	Vladimir Bileka	White Bear - Wild Horse	+ 18
10	Eros Capecchi	Rabobank	+ 21
11	Ahmad Haidar Anuawar	M&M Cycling	+ 23
12	Michiel Van Aelbroeck	Rabobank	+ 25
13	Hervé Duclos-Lassalle	Rabobank	+ 26
14	Allan Davis	American Suzuki	+ 27
15	Mathieu Heijboer	Rabobank	s.t.

Points Classification:

1	Lars Croket	White Bear - Wild Horse	25
2	Gert Steegmans	Rabobank	20
3	Tom Boonen	Warner Brothers	16
4	Allan Davis	American Suzuki	14
5	Maxime Vantomme	Philips - Hummel	12

Youth Rider Classification:

1	Lars Croket	White Bear - Wild Horse	3h25'28
2	Aleksandr Serebriakov	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	+ 8
3	Pim Ligthart	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	+ 8
4	Ivan Kovalev	Virgin Media - Caisse d'Epargne	+ 13
5	Eros Capecchi	Rabobank	+ 21