Tour Down Under: Simon Gerrans wins sprint in Victor Harbor

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For the first time in his career, Simon Gerrans claimed back-to-back stage wins at the Tour Down Under winning the spring finish in Victor Harbor ahead of Ben Swift (Team Sky) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo).

“I am absolutely thrilled with that. I think quite a few people are surprised, myself included. We had a really good run in to the finish as you guys saw. What the team was able to do to set me up for the intermediate sprint and then gain for final, they are really making my life as easy as possible,” Gerrans said in a post-stage television interview after claiming his fifth career stage win at the race.

Having won the 2014 edition of the Victor Harbor stage, Gerrans’ experience came to the fore, while Daryl Impey’s knowledge of the technical finale also contributed to Orica-GreenEdge’s third win from four stages.

“I have a few Tour Down Under’s under my belt now, so I do know that finish quite well, as does Daryl who led me out today for the final 400 metres and that really worked out in our favour,” Gerrans said.

With 10 bonus seconds on the finish line, Gerrans also won the first intermediate sprint point to pick up 11 bonus seconds on the stage. He now leads Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff) by 14 seconds and Rohan Dennis (BMC) by 26 seconds ahead of Saturday's queen stage up Willunga Hill.

“I still have to be attentive going into Willunga tomorrow. We have a nice little buffer there but there is still a heck of a lot of work to be done,” Gerrans said of stage 5.

A late split in the front group saw Richie Porte slip down the standings, leading home a group of riders eight seconds behind Gerrans. The group also included Michael Woods (Cannondale) and Rafael Valls (Lotto Soudal).

How it unfolded

The Norton Summit climb made its debut early in the stage with several riders struggling up the steep slopes. At 4km into the stage, Lieuwe Westra (Astana) attacked with BMC’s Alessandro De Marchi in pursuit. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) bridged across to Westra while Alexis Gougeard (AG2R-La Mondiale) was unsuccessfully in his attempt. Jarlinson Pantano (IAM Cycling) then bridged across, with Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin) and Julian Arredondo (Trek-Segafredo) also making the move.

At 15km the race was all back together, with Orica-GreenEdge controlling the tempo to ensure the race arrived at the intermediate sprint point in Mylor with three bonus seconds on offer for the first rider over the line. Gerrans delivered on the work of his team to pick up maximum bonifcations ahead of McCarthy with Impey in third. Woods also contested the sprint to finish fourth.

A breakaway trio of David Tanner (IAM Cycling), Pat Shaw (UniSA-Australia) and Gougeard then jumped away from the peloton. The three leaders increased their advantage to 5:45, the biggest advantage any breakaway has enjoyed thus far in the race. Orica-GreenEdge decided enough was enough and upped the tempo to bring the leaders back within reach at 3:15.

Michael Albasini and Michael Hepburn were setting the pace for Orica-GreenEdge with Tinkoff sitting on their wheels with the average speed of the opening 40km, 40km/h. The leaders continued ahead on the road as the peloton kept them within a safe distance, gradually reducing the lead that was hovering between two, and two-and-half-minutes.

With 50km to race, the breakaway had two minutes over the peloton with the anticipated storms missing the race but hitting Adelaide with a vengeance. For the five kilometres leading into the intermediate sprint point at 37km to go in Goolwa, the peloton’s average speed 51km/h.

Shaw jumped clear from the breakaway to win the sprint point, while McCarthy and Tinkoff looked to have miscalculated the number of riders in the break, briefly trying for the sprint despite there being no reward on the line.

After the sprint, the gap was trimmed down to just 40 seconds with 30km to race with BMC then Tinkoff driving hard to catch the leaders at the 24km to go mark. At the approach of the four-kilometre climb in Port Elliot, several riders were shelled with BMC doing the damage via Danilo Wyss.

Orica-GreenEdge drove it over the climb with Sergio Henao and Richie Porte going for the KOM points with the Colombian taking the ten points. A crash at 18km to go brought down Arrendondo and several Lampre-Merida riders with the front group of 40 riders powering to the finish line.

Jesus Herrada (Movistar) launched a late move from the front group to gain a few hundred meters. Herrada was then caught, with Westra next to move with 10km to go as Sky kept the tempo high.

Through the technical final kilometres, Sky led through the corners but coming into the finishing straight it was Impey leading Gerrans, who had Swift on his wheel, while Nizzolo and McCarthy made a charge up the left-hand side of the road.

There would be no stopping Gerrans though as he became the first rider since Andre Greipel in 2010 to win back-to-back Tour Down Under stages.

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