Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto) sprang from a mad dash to the line to win stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie on Thursday.

The Aussie speedster free-lanced his way to the front in a chaotic bunch sprint and shot off Milram rider Björn Schröder’s wheel to claim his first victory of 2008 ahead of Daniele Bennati (Lampre) and Matti Breschel (CSC).

Michael Albasini (Liquigas) retained the overall lead.

“Today I was able to win alone in the sprint, but I used my teammates to chase all day,� McEwen said. “After that it was just search for a good wheel and the right opportunity. This morning I said to myself, ‘I am going to win today,’ and it turned out.�

The 172.1km leg from Moutier to Fribourg included three rated climbs: the category 1 Pierre Petuis at 18.8km; the cat. 3 Treyvaux at 122.1km; and the cobbled cat. 3 Chemin de Lorette at 138.2km.

The weather was much imporved over Wednesday and the action began early as Remy Di Gregorio (Française des Jeux), Jose Luis Arrieta (Ag2r) and Ian McKissick (BMC) took off at 4km. The peloton was immediately not interested in chasing, and by 35km the trio had a lead of 6:35.

The 22-year-old Di Gregorio, winner of a stage during the 2006 Tour de l'Avenir, led the former mountain biker McKissick and Arrieta over the first category-1 ascent, and at 61km into the day’s labors, the trio had a lead of more than nine and a half minutes.

Arrieta took the sprint points at Cudrefin (69.8km) ahead of McKissick and Di Gregorio. The peloton was creeping closer, to 9:07, led by Liquigas, High Road and Silence-Lotto. By the feed zone, the gap was down to 8:27.

With 50km to race, Arrieta, De Gregorio and McKissick still had a lead of more than 5:15. But that gap began shrinking quickly — as Di Gregorio led McKissick and Arrieta over the Treyvaux, the peloton had trimmed their margin to 4:40.

McKissick took the second sprint at 133.3 km ahead Arrieta and Di Gregorio. Behind, the peloton was at 3:40 and closing, with High Road and Silence-Lotto leading the chase for Mark Cavendish and McEwen.

Arrieta was shelled on the cobbled climb of the Lorette, with its ramps as steep as 18 percent. As the pack summited 2:23 later, Italian Francesco De Bonis (Gerolsteiner) took a solo flyer 30km from the line.

Di Gregorio and McKissick forged ahead, more than a minute up on Arrieta, with De Bonis in no-man’s land at 2:11 and the bunch at 2:52. But McKissick couldn’t hold the pace and fell back, leaving Di Gregorio on his own with 25km to go.

With 18km to race De Bonis was reabsorbed. Three kilometers later Di Gregorio held a shrinking lead of 1:33 over McKissick and 1:56 on the bunch.

With 13km to do McKissick was finally retrieved, leaving Di Gregorio the sole survivor of the day’s break, clinging to a lead of just 1:20 as Bradley Wiggins led the chase for High Road.

With 10km to go the gap was under a minute and Di Gregorio was clearly baked as the little climbs nibbled away at his legs. Behind, Liquigas was charging for Bennati.

Two kilometers later the bunch had Di Gregorio in its sights — and then Alexandre Moos (BMC) put in a huge effort, taking a slight and short-lived lead over the chase with 7km to race.

The peloton was strung out in one long line, racing along the winding descent and past the road furniture back into Fribourg. Caisse d’Epargne’s Garcia Acosta shot out of the bunch briefly, but found himself with company — Gerolsteiner’s Markus Fothen — and decided to drop back.

With 2km to race Fothen was powering along, hoping to steal a march on the sprinters — but it was nothing doing, as the chase gobbled him up within sight of the kite marking 1km to go.

Inside the final kilometer it was utter chaos — none of the sprinters’ teams were able to crank up their trains. That left the door open for the ultimate free-lancer, McEwen, who worked his way to the front and took the stage ahead of Bennati and Breschel.

"It's great to get my first win of the season," McEwen said. "It's also good for the morale."