Cavendish was edged out in the race to the finish line

Mark Cavendish was surprisingly pipped on the line in a sprint finish by Belarusian rider Yauheni Hutarovich in the second stage of the Tour of Spain.

The Manxman was in pole position after getting ahead of Tyler Farrar and Alessandro Petacchi at the end of Sunday's 173.7km stage into Marbella.

But Hutarovich came shooting through on the outside to edge him into second.

Cavendish, the first British rider to lead the Vuelta since Robert Millar in 1986, retained the leader's red jersey.

A four-strong group of Javier Ramirez Abeja, Mickael Buffaz, Johnnie Walker and Mickael Delage broke away early in the stage from Alcala de Guadaira to Marbella.

They boasted an advantage of over seven minutes a third of the way through the stage but Buffaz then suffered a nasty fall that ended up seeing him pull out of the Vuelta with a fractured collarbone.

The remaining three riders continued to stay ahead of the rest, although they were caught by Marcos Garcia at around the 129km mark after the Spaniard had staged a solo breakaway from the peloton.

However, the four leaders were unable to keep their advantage over the main body of riders and, with just over 10km to go to the finishing line, they were caught by the peloton.

It set up a sprint finish and it was Hutarovich who struck late to claim his first major stage win to win in four hours 35 minutes and 41 seconds.

Monday's 157km stage will take the riders from Marbella to Malaga.

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