Norway's Thor Hushovd won the second race of this year's Tour de France on July 6, but Spaniard Alejandro Valverde remained top of the overall standings and will keep the leader's yellow jersey for another day.

Hushovd, racing for Credit Agricole, beat Team Columbia's Kim Kirchen and Gerald Ciolek for the win after a superbly-timed sprint on the last 300 metres to win his sixth in the competition.

"That’s the best way to start off the Tour de France. Now I can relax a little. There’s not too much pressure anymore; I’ve achieved something and now I can concentrate on the green jersey and perhaps a few other stages," Hushovd said after the end of the 164.5km stage from Auray to Saint Brieuc, as quoted by the competition's official website letour.com.

Hushovd, who won the sprinters' competition in 2005, rose to third in the green jersey standing, while Kirchen's second-place finish was enough for him to take the jersey off Belgian Philippe Gilbert.

South African Robert Hunter was fourth, while six-time winner of the sprinters' classification Erik Zabel, racing in his 12th Tour de France, was fifth.

But there will be little change at the top in the overall standings, Valverde doing just enough to finish in the leading group to maintain a tenuous one-second lead over a dozen other riders, among them Kirchen and main rival for this year's Tour, Australian Cadel Evans.

In the mountain king standings, Frenchman Thomas Voeckler extended his lead after taking points on all four of the day's climbs. He spent most of the stage on the break-away and was only caught up, along with fellow FrenchmenSylvain Chavanel, Christophe Moreau and David Lelay, with less than three km to go.

The main contenders for the polka-dot jersey, as expected, are saving their strength for the Pyrenees, which the Tour will reach on July 13.

That list might not feature last year's king of the mountains, Juan Mauricio Soler Hernández, who struggled on the second day of the race after being involved in a crash in the first stage of the Tour. He is now last in the standings, 10 minutes and 22 seconds behind the yellow jersey.

The third stage of the Tour de France on July 7 will start in Saint Malo, with the finish line 208km away in Nantes. It will be another flat stage that will give sprinters a chance to notch a stage win before the first time trial of the race on July 8.