"Everything took place superbly well,'' said Hushovd, who overcame an upset stomach to finish in 4 hours, 37 minutes, 47 seconds for his fifth Tour stage win.
"I'm too happy.''
"I was sure my form wasn't too bad,'' Hushovd said, refering to his involvement in Monday's second stage crash.
He won the green jersey awarded to the Tour's best sprinter in 2005.
South Africa's Robert Hunter of South Africa was second, and Spaniard Oscar Freire was third.
They and the trailing peloton, which included Cancellara, finished with the same time as Hushovd.
Cancellara holds on
Cancellara is the only rider to wear the race leader's yellow jersey this
year. He won the prologue and the third stage but had four seconds cut off his overall lead on Wednesday to 29 seconds.
Hushovd, who earned bonus time for Wednesday's stage win, cut 20 seconds off his deficit behind Cancellara and climbed from ninth to second.
Andreas Kloeden of Germany dropped to third, remaining 33 seconds behind.
After a string of mostly flat stages, the race veers into several hilly
patches for Thursday's 182.5-kilometre trek from the Burgundy town of Chablis to Autun featuring eight medium-grade climbs.
Bold breakaway riders are expected to step forward to take the spotlight
in the three-week race, before climbers emerge for three days in the Alps starting Saturday.
"Tomorrow's a really tough stage, and we're going to have to take it
day-to-day,'' Cancellara said.
The tour is relatively flat until the weekend when it heads into the
mountains and overall favorites usually try to make their move.
A tight race
Few can be ruled out yet: 160 riders are within two minutes of Cancellara.
"Someone's really going to have some guts to go for it tomorrow ...
People are going to be biding their time thinking about (the Alps),'' said
American and Cancellara CSC teammate Christian Vandevelde.
Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov is widely seen as the top contender,
though Kloeden, American Levi Leipheimer, Australia's Cadel Evans, Russian Denis Menchov and Spaniards Alejandro Valverde and Oscar Pereiro are all possible title aspirants.
"For me, when I get into the mountains, it's sure that it's finished,''
Cancellara said, referring to his ownership of the yellow jersey.
Two riders dropped out of the race after crashing early in Wednesday's
stage.
Xavier Zandio of Spain broke his right collarbone and France's Remy di
Gregorio broke his right elbow.
A total of four riders have pulled out, leaving 185 riders left.