Australia's Orca GreenEdge rider Michael Matthews retained his leader's pink jersey as he crossed the line in fourth and, despite missing out on the bonus seconds, held his lead to 21 seconds over fellow Australian Cadel Evans.

After picking up his first win on Tuesday (May 13), this victory on the 211 kilometre route will come as a huge boost for the 23-year-old Bouhanni, who is out of contract at FDJ.fr at the end of the season.

"It's great to win a second stage," said Bouhanni.

"I'm happy for me and for the team.

"They did an incredible job to keep me out of the wind and then to close the gap on the break.

"I was on the wheel of the Giant-Shimano riders and had Chavanel behind me.

"I managed to go through the gap on the right and to get past the other riders to win.

"The Giro is one of the biggest races in the world and so to win two stages is great for me."

The peloton managed to reel in a five-man breakaway that looked to have safely settled ahead of the chasing pack on this seventh stage of the Giro d'Italia ©Getty Images



The win looked well beyond the Frenchman, and the rest of the peloton, for large periods of the race after a five-man breakaway were allowed a gap of eight minutes over the chasing pack.

The group, consisting of Australia's Nathan Haas of Garmin-Sharp, Robinson Chalapud of Colombia, Colombia's Winner Anacona of Lampre-Merida, Germany's Björn Thurau of Europcar and Italy's Nicola Boem of Bardiani-CSF, still had a lead of more than five minutes going into the final 50km, making their chances of staying clear a realistic possibility.

Led by FDJ, Cannondale and Giant-Shimano, the chasing peloton began to reel in the breakaways however, and managed to catch the group in the nick of time.

From here, FDJ's hard-work was well rewarded as Bouhanni but in a solid burst of pace to shade Nizzolo of Trek Factory Racing.

Action is due to continue tomorrow with racers tackling the first of a series of mountain stages as they make the climb to summit of the iconic Montecopiolo in a 179km battle.

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