Greipel grabs Mallorca finale

Andre Greipel of HTC-Columbia finally won a sprint in the Mallorca Challenge, winning the Trofeo Magaluf-Palmanova today. The German sprinter won the mass sprint in the final race of the series ahead of Koldo Fernandez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Manuel Cardoso (Footon-Servetto).

Greipel had come into the race from the Tour Down Under, where he won three stages and the overall title. However, he had not done as well as expected on Mallorca, finishing 14th and second in his two appearances.

The 27-year-old won after 158.5 rolling kilometres, which included five ranked climbs, four category two and one category three.  He also overcame a punctured tyre only 10 km before the finish.

“I wasn't expecting this win,” Greipel said afterwards. “Before the stage I thought I'd just try to hang on for as long as I could in the hillier parts, but I got over the climbs in a lot better shape than I'd thought possible.

"In the last 40 kilometres my HTC-Columbia teammates did a lot of chasing of the riders who'd broken away and that way we had everything under control in the last part of the stage.”

The race turned into a battle between those teams who wanted to establish a break and those who wanted to keep the peloton together for the mass sprint. Footon-Servetto was determined to make a an escape, sending first Ermanno Capelli and later Matthias Brändle up the road, but the peloton didn't let anyone get too far ahead.

A high-powered group of Joan Horrach (Katusha), Leon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne), Maxime Monfort (HTC-Columbia) and Daniele Moreno (Omega Pharma-Lotto) got away near the end, but was caught again with four km to go. HTC-Columbia set up the sprint and Greipel galloped home for his fifth win of the year.

Greipel said, “I followed my teammate [Vicente] Reynes. I was about fifth wheel on the final right-hand corner onto the finishing straight on the seafront and then I went for it in the last 200 metres. It's always good to get a win, but I'm particularly pleased with how well I got over the climbs on a tough day, too. My teammates worked hard for this, too, and we deserved to get a win."