The Tour du Poitou Charentes et de la Vienne is held from August 28 to 31 and consists of 5 stages with the 4th and 5th stages - an Individual Time Trial and then a road race taking place on the last day. The race covers 670km over rolling terrain.

Stage 1 got underway in Ruelle sur Touvre and covered 188km over some tricky climbs before ending in La Rochelle.

It would appear that Chris Sutton (Cofidis) has hit a little vein of form after taking out the Chateauroux Classic de l'Indre Trophee Fenioux on Sunday he managed to back it up with a win in the opening stage here. He came out of a 28 man breakaway to take the sprint for the line. As in the recent Tour of Ireland, if you weren't in that opening day breakaway, you're out of the running for the General Classification chances with the bulk of the field coming in more than 16 minutes behind.

So if last Sunday was a gift for the Cofidis team, I'm guessing that Sutton is keeping the glory of this win for himself.

And so we'd better have a look at what winning for a second time in three days looks like...

Stage 1 Results (Top 10)

1 Christopher Sutton (Aus) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone                       4.14.57
2 Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Agritubel                                   
3 Niels Brouzes (Fra) Auber                                         
4 Huub Duyn (Ned) Team Slipstream powered by Chipotle               
5 Evert Verbist (Bel) Chocolade Jacques-Topsport Vlaanderen         
6 Yoann Offredo (Fra) Française des Jeux                            
7 Anthony Charteau (Fra) Crédit Agricole                            
8 Christophe Edaleine (Fra) Crédit Agricole                         
9 Kevin Neirynck (Bel) Landbouwkrediet-Tönissteiner                 
10 David Munoz Banoz (Spa) Fuerteventura-Canarias                   

Overall GC Standings

1 Christopher Sutton (Aus) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone            4.14.47
2 Niels Brouzes (Fra) Auber                                                                        0.03
3 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Bouygues Telecom                            
4 Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Agritubel                                                             0.04
5 David Munoz Banoz (Spa) Fuerteventura-Canarias                             0.08
6 Christophe Edaleine (Fra) Crédit Agricole                                             0.09
7 Huub Duyn (Ned) Team Slipstream powered by Chipotle                  0.10
8 Evert Verbist (Bel) Chocolade Jacques-Topsport Vlaanderen         
9 Yoann Offredo (Fra) Française des Jeux                            
10 Anthony Charteau (Fra) Crédit Agricole                           

Points Classification

1 Christopher Sutton (Aus) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone        25 pts
2 Nicolas Vogondy (Fra) Agritubel                                                     20
3 Niels Brouzes (Fra) Auber                                                                19

Mountains Classification

1 Piotr Zielinski (Pol) Bretagne-Armor Lux                                             8 pts
2 Mickaël Buffaz (Fra) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone                        7
3 Pieter Ghyllebert (Bel) Chocolade Jacques-Topsport Vlaanderen    4

Best Young Rider Classification

1 Christopher Sutton (Aus) Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone             4.14.47
2 Huub Duyn (Ned) Team Slipstream powered by Chipotle                   0.10
3 Evert Verbist (Bel) Chocolade Jacques-Topsport Vlaanderen         
4 Yoann Offredo (Fra) Française des Jeux                            
5 Kevin Neirynck (Bel) Landbouwkrediet-Tönissteiner                 

Team

1 Fuerteventura-Canarias                                            
2 Bouygues Telecom                                                  
3 Cofidis-Le Crédit par Téléphone                                0.08