Renshaw too quick for Swift

London - Australia's Mark Renshaw has won a sprint finish against Team Sky's Ben Swift to take stage two of the Tour of Britain in Llandudno on Monday.

Renshaw, who usually works as Mark Cavendish's lead-out man with the Omega Pharma-Quick Step squad, raced clear to win as Swift suffered the consequences of making his move too soon.

After the climb of the Great Orme created significant splits in the peloton, Movistar's Alex Dowsett tried to break away to victory, but Bradley Wiggins, working for Swift, led a group of chasers back on to their wheel on the approach to the line.

Swift then sprang forward but, with Cavendish not in contention, Renshaw covered the move and claimed the win.

"It was a great stage, a great victory, my first for the year with Omega Pharm-Quick Step," Renshaw told British Eurosport.

"It's always good to win, I've had victories here before on the Tour of Britain and it's good to do it again."

The 31-year-old, winner of stage five of the Tour of Britain in 2011, will now take the yellow jersey from Marcel Kittel, who lost touch with the peloton on the Great Orme.

"It's great to be in yellow, it's a bonus," Renshaw added.

"We came here to work for Cav but he had a really bad crash yesterday and is just trying to recover at the moment so he gave me a chance and it's a really good victory."

Before the day's racing began, Sky lost Ian Stannard, who withdrew with a fractured scaphoid suffered in a crash during Sunday's opening stage.

Stage

1. Mark Renshaw (AUS/Omega Pharma-QuickStep 4hr 38min 54sec, 2. Ben Swift (GBR/Team Sky) same time, 3. Sam Bennett (IRL/Team NetApp-Endura) s.t., 4. Tyler Farrar (USA/Garmin-Sharp) s.t., 5. Rick Zabel (GER/BMC Racing Team) s.t.

Overall standings

1. Mark Renshaw (AUS/Omega Pharma-QuickStep) 6hrs 55min 19sec, 2. Ben Swift (GBR/Team Sky) at 04sec, 3. Nicola Ruffoni (ITA/Bardiani CSF) s.t., 4 Sam Bennett (IRL/Team NetApp-Endura) at 06sec, 5. Mark Cavendish (GBR/Omega Pharma-QuickStep) s.t.