Greipel wins Austria's opening stage

While Mark Cavendish was winning stage two of the Tour de France for Columbia-HTC, the American squad was enjoying a double success with Andre Greipel taking the first stage of the Tour of Austria. He proved his strength yet again for his 11th win of the 2009 season.

"We had to fight hard for this victory because two dangerous moves got away during the stage and both of them were difficult to pull back," said Greipel. "It was a hilly course, and we didn't get back the last two breakaways until eight kilometres to go.

"After that [teammates] Marcel Sieberg and Marcus Burghardt gave me the lead-out I needed and I went for it with about 200 metres to go."

The combination of speed bumps and a spirited challenge from Australian rider Graeme Brown meant the finish was challenging for the big German sprinter. "There was a headwind and we left it till quite late to start the sprint, so it ended up being close," he said.

"But it's never easy, a lot of the guys see that I'm going well and they want to get on my back wheel. I don't get given any margin for error!"

Greipel now boasts an impressive record in 2009 - the German has won half the races he has started, and has one eye on his 2008 total of 14 victories. "I think I can do it, although here in Austria I'm not optimistic about holding the leader's jersey tomorrow, the stage finishes with a seven kilometre climb. But there are more sprint stages later on in the race, and if we can keep the breaks from opening up too big a gap, then I'll try and win some more."