Italy's Vincenzo Nibali emerged as the winner of stage two of the Tour de France held in Sheffield, UK, on Sunday. He claimed the highly coveted yellow jersey from German champ and stage one winner Marcel Kittel, who finished 20 minutes later.

Nibali overcame the tough climb of 201-kilometer route straight to the finish line. He executed a solo attack 1.8 kilometers from the Motorpoint arena, which earned him two more seconds and made him finish first.

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In 2012, Nibali came in third place in the Tour. This year, he outperformed himself when he took the lead at the uphill climb to Jenkin Road.

Nibali had a 50-meters lead when one of the best sprinters in the race, Peter Sagan, slightly slowed down at the Meadowhall Way. Nibali dominated the Tour's stage two.

The cyclists were tested to endure the final 800-meter ascent before crossing over to the finish line. Four more climbs for stage two were incorporated into its final 60km course. The additional climbs allowed the riders to take advantage of slight openings and to separate them from each other in order to obtain a lead of one to two minutes.

Nibali believes that he is in a perfect form -- enough to make him win the highly coveted yellow jersey when Tour de France comes to an end in Paris on July 27.

Next to Nibali, other Tour cyclist in the higher ranks include Greg Van Avermaet from Belgium and Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland. British cyclist Mark Cavendish was pulled out of the Tour before stage two began due to his accident involving a bicycle crash on the opening day.

Stage three of Tour de France will take place this Monday and will call for the cyclists to race from Cambridge to London.

TagsVincenzo Nibali, marcel kittel, Mark Cavendish, Greg Van Avermaet, Michal Kwiatkowski, tour de france 2014