Britain's Mark Cavendish claimed the leader's pink jersey at the Giro d'Italia - but was furious with stage two winner Alessandro Petacchi.
Italian Petacchi burst off Cavendish's wheel during the sprint finish into Parma but then appeared to swerve back across the Manxman's line.
Cavendish waved his arms in appeal as he crossed the finish line, less than a rim width behind his Lampre rival, who saluted his 22nd Giro stage win.
Despite Cavendish's protests the result was allowed to stand and the HTC-Highroad rider's disappointment was tempered only by the fact he took the Maglia Rosa from team-mate Marco Pinotti thanks to time bonuses for second place.
The 25-year-old now holds a 12-second advantage over fellow team-mates Kanstantsin Sivtsov and Craig Lewis at the top of the overall standings.
Earlier in the day Sebastian Lang of Omega Pharma-Lotto had made a lone escape and built up a lead of almost 20 minutes on the peloton during the 244km trek from Alba.
He was eventually reeled in with just over 26km to go and the HTC-Highroad and Garmin-Cervelo teams rode down several counter-attacks to set up the dramatic sprint finish.
After the stage a disgruntled Cavendish told Italian TV: "I'm happy to have the Maglia Rosa after a hard stage for the team. Petacchi is a good guy but in the last 200 metres he moved three times. The judges usually relegate someone when they do that."
Petacchi meanwhile, insisted he had done nothing wrong and was happy the result had been allowed to stand.
He said: "I don't understand what I've done wrong. I went on the left and he went on the right. I moved slightly but he wasn't next to me. I didn't put him into the barriers because I was ahead of him."
