Team Sky's Simon Gerrans notched his second top 10-finish in as many days with eighth place on stage two of the Tour de Suisse.

The Australian went one better than Saturday's ninth in the prologue as he took close order in the sprint finish in Sierre behind winner Heinrich Haussler.

The Cervélo rider pounced late to edge out Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel) and Marco Mercato (Vacansoleil) on the line.

The decisive point on the 167.5km route from Ascona came around 13km from the finish, with the category 3-rated climb at Valençon seeing a number of the sprint favourites dropped.

Five Team Sky riders - Gerrans, Juan Antonio Flecha (17th), Serge Pauwels (25th), Thomas Löfkvist (45th) and Lars-Petter Nordhaug (60th) - finished in the front group and were credited with the same time as Haussler.

So far so good

Not surprisingly Team Sky's Sports Director Marcus Ljungqvist was more than happy with that and told us: "The final climb surprised a few but it was really good to see five of our guys in that front group.

"It was a good day for us - Simon is riding well and Thomas is looking really strong on the climbs so it's going to be interesting to see what we can do. The whole team is looking good and working well together."

There was no change at the top of the overall standings, with Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) also part of that main peloton to keep the race leader's yellow jersey following his victory in the prologue.

Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas) is a second behind in the GC, with Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) in third.

Löfkvist is sixth, 12 seconds adrift, with Gerrans just a place and a further second behind his teammate.

The riders now tackle Monday's third stage which covers 196.6km from Sierre to Schwarzenburg and Ljungqvist expects a similar test for his men, adding: "The profile is much the same to today, though maybe a little bit tougher and the climbs could easily split up the group again.

"There's an uphill finish up to Schwarzenburg too so it should be a lively stage."