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Powerful Boonen grabs overall lead
SAINT-AMANT-MONTROND, France (Reuters) -- Tom Boonen gave an impressive show of strength in the 193-km first stage of Paris-Nice to win the final sprint and seize the overall lead on Monday. The Belgian world champion edged out Australian Allan Davis and Spain's Francisco Ventoso on the line for his first ProTour win this season after four stage victories in the Tour of Qatar and two in the Tour of Valencia. Boonen takes the yellow and white leader jersey from Bobby Julich and said: "Two weeks ago, when I saw the roadbook, I had marked the stage down as one of my goals." He added: "It was a flat stage which suited me fine even though the conditions made it very hard. It was cold, it rained and I'm all the happier to have been able to win in such conditions." Overall, Boonen is ahead of prologue winner Julich by seven seconds with Kazakh Andrey Kashechkin in third place, a further second adrift. Julich, the overall winner last year, finished with the main bunch. Thanks to a surprisingly strong showing in the prologue, Boonen was only three seconds behind Julich at the start of the stage in Villemandeur and he knew a podium place at the finish would be enough to take the reins thanks to the bonuses. The Belgian sprint ace was peerless when, after two vain breakaways, the stage outcome was left for the sprinters to decide. Davis surged first on the left of the final stretch but Boonen caught up effortlessly and went on to earn his 43rd career victory. "It's good to have won that stage because now we can relax and take it easy until the end of Paris-Nice," said Boonen, who made it clear his Quick Step team's priority was the one-day races. "In the team we have four or five riders who can do well in the classics and that's a luxury." The stage was marked by two major breakaways. American David Zabriskie, winner of the Tour de France first time trial in July, broke clear for 38 km early in the day before being caught. Frenchmen Stephane Auge and Christophe Laurent then took over and held a maximum lead of 10 minutes and five seconds before the bunch launched the chase and reined them in with six km left. Tuesday's second stage takes the 168 riders over 200 km from Cerilly to Beleville-en-Beaujolais. Petacchi firstAlessandro Petacchi won a mass sprint finish in the Giro di Lucca on Monday, beating fellow Italian Claudio Corioni and German teammate Erik Zabel. It was Petacchi's sixth victory this season and the 113th of his career. Petacchi covered the 189-kilometer (117-mile) route from Fornaci di Barga to Capannori in 4 hours, 22 minutes, 39 seconds. Petacchi lost to Mario Cipollini in last year's Giro di Lucca sprint. The Giro di Lucca is a warmup for the weeklong Tirreno-Adriatico race, which begins Wednesday. 
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