Merckx was an extremely popular figure in Adelaide for the official race opener.
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The UniSA-Australia team were presented first on stage. Boat loads of talent in this young squad and they'll certainly be chasing stage wins in the race.
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Vacansoleil-DCM's Wouter Mol (far right) has been selected as the race's "obscure pro".
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Saxo Bank have two Australians in their team - Luke Roberts a South Australian had his own personal tifosi in attendance.
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FDJ-BigMat keep much the same colours of the former FDJ squad. Jeremy Roy was very popular.
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Paul Sherwen did a great job of translating Rojas' comments about the race.
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Rabobank's Mark Renshaw got one of the biggest cheers by the crowd.
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Garmin Barracuda's Nathan Haas was given plenty of attention by the presenters. He went on to take three of the four sprints in the Classic that followed.
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Lotto-Belisol looked confident, and with Andre Greipel they had good reason to be.
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The sign on board ahead of the race start.
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Eddy Merckx has a go on the "Didge".
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Former world champion Alessandro Ballan.
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Valverde has said that he's happy to be back in Adelaide for the race.
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The Astana squad in their familar aqua blue.
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AG2R have a rich history in Adelaide. Martin Elmiger (left) is a former winner.
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Euskatel-Euskadi will hope that this season they can attract an international sponsor with some international success. This could be a great place for the team to start.
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Controversial figure Alejandro Valverde signs on. This is the second time he's appeared at the Tour Down Under.
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GreenEdge on stage. Cameron Meyer fielded questions on returning to the race as a defending champion.
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The Down Under Classic, the traditional precursor to the Tour Down Under's official start on Tuesday, gave fans their first chance to see some of the professionals in attendance up close. The team's presentation which preceded the race gave the assembled crowd a little bit of an insight in some of their heroes before the actual racing began.
First on stage were the always popular UniSA-Australia team, followed by the 18 WorldTour squads.
Among the most popular were the locals Luke Roberts (Saxo Bank) and Stuart O'Grady (GreenEdge), but there were also big cheers for Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Nissan), Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) and 'new Australian' Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Barracuda).
