Ster Elektrotoer 2009

Greipel sprints to third stage win

Silence Lotto's Philippe Gilbert needed just one second to steal the overall victory in the Ster Elektrotoer from Milram's Niki Terpstra, but he took one more for good measure through intermediate sprint bonuses to secure the win on the final stage.

Columbia-Highroad's Andre Greipel sprinted to his third stage win of the tour, besting Italian Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) and Roberto Ferrari (LPR Brakes).

"It is the second stage race I've won" said Gilbert, a one-day race specialist who last won a multi-day race in 2004, the Paris - Corrèze, while racing for Francaise des Jeux. 

Gilbert took third in both intermediate sprints to edge out Terpstra in the overall classification. The two were tied on time coming into the final stage.

"The tactic worked perfectly. We wanted to go for the bonus seconds,  and were able to do so at the first intermediate sprint."

"We tried everything to keep Niki Terpstra in the yellow jersey. The team was very strong. Unfortunately it wasn't enough in the end, and everything went against us,“ said Milram directeur sportif Ralf Grabsch. "Gilbert is a well-known rider and simply had the luck to pick up one second each at two intermediate sprints. Our team has nothing to blame iteself for."

Greipel confirmed himself as the dominant sprinter of the race, but Napolitano brought the final stage to a photo finish. The jury decided the win in favour of the German, who has won 10 out of 18 races so far this year after having his early season cut short by a crash in the Tour Down Under.

 “It’s often the way when riders have had a bad injury like Andre, when they come back they’re hungrier for the wins and at a better level than if they’d been racing for longer," said directeur sportif Allan Peiper. "Andre already had the confidence he could do it after winning the Tour Down Under back in 2008. Then as soon as he could after the injury he started training hard again and never gave up. It’s like I always say, something good can come out of something bad.”

The final stage was marked by a large escape of 21 riders which was brought back only in the final 10 kilometres.  

“[Gert] Dockx, Vicente Reynes and [Frantisek] Rabon pulled back the break, and then in the last 800 metres, Mark Renshaw and Greg Henderson took over to bring Andre up to the sprint," explained Peiper. "We didn’t need to do too much work during the stage, just some work in the cross-winds, because after Saturday’s stage in the Ardennes we were out of the main battle for the overall and other teams were fighting it out. But we believe in Andre 100 percent, and when it counted the guys worked hard to ensure that it all stayed together, and that Andre was in the right position to go for the win.”

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