Dan Martin reunited with panda; poised for fireworks as Tour of Beijing nears mountains

Dan Martin hasn't had a trip to the podium at the Tour of Beijing just yet, but he was delighted to have his photo taken with the panda race mascot, having been chased to Liège–Bastogne–Liège victory earlier in the year by the same animal.

After two stages of the Tour of Beijing, Dan Martin is sitting equal on time with the other big favourites in a race that has belonged to the sprinters thus far. National champion Matt Brammeier is in the same boat after also finishing in the bunch for the past two days.

Today's stage 2 took the field the 201.5km from Huairou Studio City to Yanqing and was won in a bunch sprint by former French national champion of Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr).

It was his tenth win of the season and was bagged after a really commanding gallop in which he held off the challenge of Roberto Ferrari (Lampre-Merida) and Mitchell Docker (Orica-GreenEdge), who took second and third respectively.

Bouhanni also took the overall leader's red jersey in the race from stage 1 winner Thor Hushovd (BMC Racing). The Norwegian took the first red jersey of the 2013 edition with a late surge in the bunch sprint that settled the 190km stage from Shunyi to Huairou Studio City.

He left his effort late and came through to take the stage from Luka Mezgec (Argos-Shimano) and Nikolas Maes (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), who were 2nd and 3rd respectively.

The bigger names of Alessandro Petacchi (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and double Vuelta 2013 stage winner Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) went too early in the sprint and lost out.

The general classification sees all of the big names equal on time after the two bunch sprints, with the top 10 separated by the time bonuses that have been on offer in the sprints so far. But with some tough climbing to come in the next few days, those bonuses will be blown away pretty quickly.