Tom Boonen (Quick Step) has won his second consecutive stage of Paris-Nice. The Belgian bested Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros) and Danilo Napolitano (Lampre) to take the rolling, 200-km stage from Cerilly to Belleville in 5:20:50. Boonen has extended his overall lead.

In the first km, Nicolas Crosbie (Agritubel) escaped and ran up a 27:30 lead by 81 km. Quick Step rode tempo, but the Belgian squad received no cooperation from CSC or Liberty Seguros. Numerous attempts to bridge up to Crosbie took place, but the Agritubel rider looked like a winner with 40 km remaining. At that point, Crosbie led by 11 minutes, but he suffered hunger knock, and Samuel Dumoulin (Ag2r) and Andriy Grivko (Milram) reeled him in with 10 km left.

Dumoulin and Grivko stayed clear until the last two km, when the Quick Step-led peloton reeled them in. Davis gave Boonen more of a tussle than in Stage 1, but the world champion was having none of it.

Stage 2 was crash-marred. Crashes took down Christian Vandevelde and Michael Blaudzun (both from CSC), Pierrick Fedrigo (Bouygues Telecom), Sven Montgomery (Gerolsteiner), Mirko Celestino (Milram), and Brad Wiggins (Cofidis). Vandevelde, Fedrigo, Montgomery, and Celestino abandoned.

The mishaps have turned CSC?s strategy on its head. According to Bjarne Riis, the Danish squad?s directeur sportif, ?It was just plain bad luck that Michael and Christian crashed into each other and its too bad we have to do without Christian. He?s having his left shoulder X-rayed this evening, and hopefully he doesn?t have any broken bones. Blaudzun fought hard to get through the stage. He suffered quite a lot of pains in his knee but did manage to complete, which is actually pretty impressive. We?ll have a problem sticking to our plan with only six riders because the race will get tougher already from tomorrow.?

In the overall, Boonen leads Bobby Julich (CSC) by 0:17 and Kashechkin (Liberty Seguros) by 0:18. Stage 3, a 168-km ride from Julienas to Saint-Etienne, will feature six categorized climbs, including the Category 1 Col de la Croix de Chabouret at 150 km. The climbers should step forward on this climb. Who will win? Floyd Landis (Phonak)? Christophe Moreau (Ag2r)? Yaroslav Popovych (Discovery Channel)? Check in at http://www.roadcycling.com/ and find out!