Brown takes first season win

By Susan Westemeyer

Graeme Brown of Team Rabobank opened the season with a series of second and third place finishes, so he was happy to take the win in the Trofeo Cala on Monday, the second race in the Volta a Mallorca. Thanks to second on day one and yesterday's win, the 28 year-old Australian took the overall lead in the five-day race.

"As a team, we haven't had the easiest half a year," the sprinter noted on the team's website, rabobank.nl. After a couple months of rest, our sprinters got back on their bikes and we immediately win our second race in Europe. That's why I say: a victory is always nice, but this one feels extra nice and good to me."

It wasn't all good news for the Rabobank team, though, as two riders had to drop out of the race. An Euskaltel rider went down and caused a chain reaction, with Rabobank's Laurens Ten Dam and Juan Antonio Flecha among the victims. "Laurens fell hard and needed stitches in his upper leg. He probably won't be able to ride on Tuesday and it seems unlikely that he will during the rest of the week," directeur sportif Adri van Houwlingen said. "I think Flecha will be fine."