It has been a long, dry spell for the sprinters at the Giro d'Italia bike race, what with mountains, hairpin turns near the finish-line and summit finishes.
That ended Tuesday, as the flat run along the Adriatic Coast for Stage 10 proved to be the perfect opportunity for them.
Rivals Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) and Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre) made the most of it, as they battled in the closing meters of the field sprint.
Cavendish hung onto Petacchi's rear wheel and then attacked, driving past the Italian to the finish line. Francisco Ventoso (Movistar) took second, with Petacchi trailing at third.
It marked Cavendish's sixth career sprint win at the Giro and the first of this edition. (He had won the overall leader's pink jersey the first day after HTC Columbia won the team time trial.) He claimed that Petacchi had blocked his move in Stage 2.
Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank) remained in the overall lead.
The 159km (99.5-mile) bike race from Termoli to Teramo opened with an immediate breakaway.
Fumiyuki Beppu (RadioShack), Pierre Cazaux (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Yuriy Krivtsov
(AG2R La Mondiale) gained as much as 6 minutes, but spent most of the race dangling out from by 2 or 3 minutes.
The peloton reeled them back with 11km left.
As the peloton sped through Teramo, Garmin-Cervelo's David Millar attacked and stayed out front for about a minute and a half. He was caught at the 1 kilometer banner, however, and the field sprint started.
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