André Greipel of Lotto-Belisol, twice overall winner of the Santos Tour Down Under, has got his season off to a perfect start by winning the Down Under Classic, the criterium that acts as a curtain-raiser to the stage race that opens the UCI WorldTour season on Tuesday.
In a sprint finish, Greipel, Tour Down Under overall winner in 2008 and 2010 while with Highroad Sports (pictured), won the sprint finish from Team Sky’s Edvald Boasson, with Garmin-Barracuda’s Heinrich Haussler third.
Following his victory Greipel, who previously won the criterium in 2008, quoted on the Tour Down Under website, said: "As a team, we didn't want to race with too much pressure but it worked out well.
"We practiced a lot of lead out train before this race and it paid off. It's always good to win and it's a great way to start a new season.
"It wasn't very difficult for me actually. I only had to follow Greg Henderson who himself followed Jurgen Roelandts.
"I just needed to stay on their wheel and get out with 200 metres to go.”
Although the results of today’s race have no influence on the classifications on the Tour Down Under his victory today means that the 29-year-old German will gets the honour of being the first wearer of the ochre jersey worn by the overall leader.
While that does give Lotto-Belisol the task of defending the leader’s jersey, in all other respects everyone will start with a clean slate when the race begins outside Prospect Town Hall on Tuesday morning for the first of six stages that will showcase the South Australia countryside as the 2012 season gets under way in earnest.
Today’s race, held in evening sunshine and comprising 30 laps of a 1.7km circuit around Adelaide’s Rymill Park, had been preceded by the official presentation of the teams hosted by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen.
Highlight's of today's race will be shown this evening on Sky Sports 4 at 6.30pm.
2012 Down Under Classic Result
1. GREIPEL, A (GER) Lotto-Belisol 1:03:17
2. BOASSON HAGEN, E (NOR) Sky Procycling All at same time
3. HAUSSLER, H (AUS) Garmin-Barracuda
4. ROJAS, Jose J (ESP) Movistar
5. VON HOFF, S (AUS ) UNI SA-Australia
6. CANTWELL, J (AUS) Team Saxo Bank
7. SUTTON, C (AUS) Sky Procycling
8. GUTIERREZ, Jose I (ESP) Movistar
9. HENDERSON, G (NZL) Lotto-Belisol
10. PETACCHI, A (ITA) Lampre-ISD
A bike shop is under no obligation to sell a bike if they want to. If the deal doesn't work, the shop can say no. In my experience, many bike shops...
But IIRC her van is the size of a Sprinter or a small bus, so completely inappropriate for an urban environment anyway. She's just been lucky so...
The Campagnolo cassette still needs a Campagnolo freehub.
It'll just be a partial view though as people simply don't see all the drivers of motor vehicles "chancing it" or parking illegally, never mind the...
"Cyclists should be insured, taxed and have bike MoT like drivers, to end this carnage from Lycra Louts" says another Daily Mail reader from...
I think someone at the office has pulled a prank on less informed road.cc reviewers: First a review of Effetto Mariposa's helmet liners and now a...
On Instagram, user @wheel_based (who has very interesting posts covering cycling patents) mentioned that hands saddle and said he would try to buy...
Props for weighing in the environmental concerns.
A picture: (edit) Hmm, it's the right way up on my phone...
I'm reading this as the komoot founder cashing out? Tough on the staff who'll get a redundancy notice and not a payout.