It's early yet, but Andre Greipel looks to be dominating this year's Tour Down Under as he took the mass sprint finish in Stage 2 on Wednesday in Australia — his second win in as many days.
The 27-year-old German is the overall leader in the race and may be looking to repeat his 2008 championship at the Tour Down Under, which ends Sunday.
Greipel appeared to be followed across the line by New Zealand's Greg Henderson (Team Sky) and Australia's Robbie McEwen (Katusha), according to radio reports. RadioShack's Gert Steegmans, who finished in 2nd place in Stage 1, didn't appear to factor in the Stage 2 finish.
Meanwhile, the captain of that RadioShack Team, Lance Armstrong, finished 48th on the stage and 39th overall. Armstrong gets the same time as everyone else because he's been finishing in the mass sprint group; he's 20 seconds behind the leader Greipel.
Overall, Greipel leads by 14 seconds (2 time bonuses), followed Henderson and Steegmans who are tied.
The victory for US-based HTC-Columbia capped another day of hard work for the squad. The 2nd stage was a 82-mile grind in the heat between Gawler and Hahndorf, interrupted by the climb up Old Checker Hill about 25 miles from the finish line.
Similar to Stage 1, a three-man breakaway attacked early in the stage and gained up to 11:30 minutes until Team Columbia came to the front of the peloton and slowly, but surely, whittled down that lead.
The three-man break of Mickael Delage and Olivier Kaisen (both of Omega Pharma -Lotto) and David Kemp were away for most of the day. Kemp took the King of the Mountain points on Old Checker Hill, about 25 miles from the finish.
Kaisen was the first to fade back into the peloton after the climb, but Delage and Kemp hung on until about 6 miles to the finish line before the sprinters teams of Columbia, Katusha, Sky and RadioShack swept past them.
Top 10 finishers
1: Andre Greipel (GER) Team HTC – Columbia
2: Greg Henderson (NZL) Team Sky
3: Robbie McEwen (AUS) Team Katusha
4: Robbie Hunter (RSA) Garmin Transitions
5:Graeme Brown (AUS) Rabobank
6: Allan Davis (AUS) Astana
7: Danilo Wyss (SUI) BMC Racing Team
8: Luke Roberts (AUS) Milram
9: Baden Cooke (AUS) Team Saxo Bank
10: Allan Davis (AUS) Astana
Recent Comments