Goss shows his sprinting speed

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HTC-Highroad demonstrated that while the two Marks - Renshaw and Cavendish - may be the squad's headline act in July, the Australian can lead out any one of the team capable of winning a sprint. And today, in the Cancer Council Helpline Classic, that man was Matt Goss.

The Tasmanian benefited from Greg Henderson's misfortune in the final corner and powered to the line ahead of Renshaw, Robbie McEwen (RadioShack) and Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale), who formed a four-man group in the final 500m due to the kiwi's crash.

Goss has been riding well recently, taking out the Jayco Bay Cycling Classic earlier this month and was pleased with the performance. "It's a great start and I'm very happy. Great for me, great for the team and a great start to the Tour Down Under," he said immediately after the win.

"We had it under control we kept the break at a reasonable distance. Our team and Omega Pharma-Lotto did a great to control the race and we were lucky to finish it of. We've got enough power (at HTC) to turn the earth off its axis."

That power consisted of riders such as Bernhard Eisel, Bert Grabsch, Danny Pate and Renshaw, whilst Mark Cavendish waited in the wings for a chance to hit out against some of the in-form fast men at the start of 2011.

And as Goss noted, André Greipel's Omega Pharma-Lotto squad did the lion's share of the work during the 51km race, taking control of proceedings and ensuring a five-man break - which became a leading trio with about 15 laps remaining - wouldn't succeed in its quest to steal the sprinters' thunder.

That escape group contained Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), talented local Luke Durbridge (UniSA-Australia), Martin Mortensen (Leopard Trek), Markel Irizar (RadioShack) and Aliaksandr Kuchynski (Katusha), which got away during the second lap and maintained a solid advantage of 30 seconds for most of the event.

With the aforementioned loss of Mortensen and Izagirre later in the race it was time for the sprinters' teams to step up and they did, taking charge after the remnants of the break were swept up with five laps remaining. First it was Greipel's squad leading the way, then Allan Davis' Astana crew before Team Sky came to the fore en masse.

Heading into the last lap the combined strength of Team Sky flexed its muscle as the likes of Matthew Hayman, Ben Swift, Simon Gerrans, CJ Sutton and Geraint Thomas worked hard to get their man Henderson to the line in a style reminiscent of its debut appearance at the event last season. On that occasion it was a quinella, although this year's result would be vastly different given Henderson's misfortune.

"It was same scenario as last year - we wanted to wait a little longer but when the opportunity arose... You go into a race with a plan but you have to think on your feet. We made the call and we had to go - everyone did their bit but you don't always win," said Hayman afterwards.

"Hendy was behind CJ [coming into the final corner], I believe, when he went down. Maybe I went through there a bit too hot - I wanted to keep the speed because I'd already done a fairly long turn and I figured if I hit the brakes too much it was going to hurt me coming out of the corner so I wanted to hit it really hard.

Henderson avoided serious injury in the accident and will only be missing some skin off his legs when the first stage of the Santos Tour Down Under starts on Tuesday.