Peter Kennaugh safely defended his leader's jersey in today's flat stage of the Tour of Austria. He is now ready for tomorrow's big queen stage that finishes on the steep Kitzbüheler Horn.

Team Sky successfully defended Peter Kennaugh’s yellow jersey on stage two of the Tour of Austria as the sprinters had their day in Bad Ischi.

Kennaugh was well marshalled throughout the 180.9-kilometre trek from Waidhofen and the Manxman looked comfortable as his team-mates controlled the pace in the searing heat.

The stage was always likely to come down to a sprint finish with just three category-four climbs to negotiate along the route and it was Oscar Gatto (Cannondale) who edged out Juan José Lobato (Movistar) and Marco Haller (Katusha) in the dash for the line.

Kennaugh rolled home safely in the bunch alongside his main GC rivals, which ensured 25-year-old maintained his 15-second cushion over Oliver Zaugg (Tinkoff-Saxo) heading into Tuesday’s Queen stage. Kanstantsin Siutsou also held onto his top ten place and the Belarusian will start the third stage ninth in the general classification.

"Today went pretty well for the team and the main thing was that we kept Pete in the jersey," explained Sports Director Dan Frost after the stage.

"The team had to work and we knew that from the beginning. We set the tempo and by the end of the stage a few teams arrived to help us. We were hoping CJ (Sutton) could have done a better sprint but it was a chaotic and dangerous finish and it wasn't possible in the end.

"Tomorrow will be a tough day and a few teams will want to try something on the Kitzbüheler Horn. We'll look to do what we did on the opening stage. We want to defend the jersey with Pete and keep Kosta up there on the GC."