Mark Cavendish of Britain won his second stage of the Tour de France on Saturday, using his superior speed to cut through the field and take a sprint finish in the rain.

Cavendish's Team Columbia demonstrated its strength with German Gerald Ciolek holding out for second, ahead of Jimmy Casper of France.

Columbia team leader Kim Kirchen of Luxembourg retained the yellow jersey as overall leader of the race that was shaken a day earlier by a positive doping test for Liquigas rider Manuel Beltran.

The Liquigas team — minus Beltran who returned to Spain after being questioned and released by police — took the start with the other teams despite debate about whether they should have withdrawn, as the Cofidis team did a year ago when rider Cristian Moreni failed a drug test.

Liquigas team director Roberto Amadio said the team knew nothing about any doping, and that Beltran denied that he had taken EPO. A second test is being carried out on Beltran's urine sample given after the first stage.

Team Columbia did a remarkable job to organize the sprint while simultaneously protecting Kirchen's yellow jersey.

Cavendish is no climber, and lost time on the biggest of the day's sprints. It took the work of members of his team to bring him back to the peloton.

"To finish with a one-two and have Kim in yellow, you can't do better than that," Cavendish said. "When I'm there in the sprint and fired up, normally I can win."

It was the last chance for the sprinters for a while as the riders enter the high mountains of the Pyrenees on Sunday.

Cavendish, who abandoned the Tour during the eighth stage last year, said he was not afraid of the mountains and planned to try to make it all the way to Paris, although he doubted he could take the green jersey of top sprinter this year.

Four cyclists — Laurent Lefevre, Jerome Pineau and Christophe Riblon of France and Amets Txurruka of Spain — broke away in the first hour of the race and at one point had a lead of five minutes.

They were chased down by the teams of the sprinters and the last two were caught with three kilometres to go, setting the race up for the sprinters.