Cycling: Henderson wins Paris-Nice stage

New Zealand road cyclist Greg Henderson won a sprint finish today to take out the second stage of the Paris-Nice race.

Belgian Thomas de Gendt of Vacansoleil holds the leader's jellow jersey after the 199km stage from Montfort-l'Amaury, west of Paris, to Amilly in central France.

Henderson, who won the first sprint of the race last year, clocked a time of five hours 00 minutes 56 seconds to finish just ahead of Australia's Matthew Goss and Russia's Denis Galimzyanov.

He is now second on general classification, just 4sec behind de Gendt.

"It was a very fast sprint at the end of a very tiring and nervy day," Henderson said.

"Thankfully I could count on Geraint Thomas, he has this capacity to spark the sprint. It was a long sprint but feeling victory within my grasp gave me wings."

Henderson said he now wangted to take the overall leader's jersey as he bids to earn a place on Team Sky's Tour de France team.

"The next stage? I'm going to try and go after the yellow jersey.

"My objective is the Tour de France, I'm hoping to race it this year unlike last year. We have an impressive team so it's hard to win a place."

Today's stage featured several falls, notably to Luxembourg's Frank Schleck and Australia's Heinrich Haussler, which were not serious.

French climber David Moncoutie was forced out of the race with a knee injury.

Tomorrow's third stage is a 202km ride from Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire to Nuits-Saint-Georges.

The race ends on March 14 (NZT).

- NZPA