Dekker wins final stage of Circuit de la Sarthe

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Despite suffering a sore knee and a GreenEdge team reduced to three riders, Luke Durbridge won the Circuit de la Sarthe-Pays de la Loire as he prevented stage 3 winner Francisco Ventoso of Movistar from collecting the nineteen bonus seconds up for grab during the final stage to Sablé-sur-Sarthe.

Thomas Dekker made his big come back for Garmin-Barracuda at the highest level of cycling after his two-year ban as he anticipated the bunch sprint and left French up and coming fast man Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) with a bitter taste.

"Normally I'm not a sprinter," Dekker commented. "A few riders attacked before the final sprint. I went with them. With 500 metres to go, I watched behind and saw a gap, so I fought till the finishing line. It was an intense effort of 1100 metres. It's a good feeling to be a winner again. I'm really happy."

Since he came back from suspension in the middle of last year with Garmin's development team Chipotle, Dekker won the 2-man time trial Duo Normand with Johan Vansummeren. He was also part of the winning squad of Garmin-Barracuda at the Tour of Qatar earlier this year but stage 4 of the Circuit de la Sarthe marks his real return as an individual. His last individual win was the 2007 Hessen Rundfahrt.

He was expected to do better than eighteenth in the time trial in Angers on Wednesday. "But I wasn't disappointed," he said. "I'm coming from a long way and I just missed the power. I'm getting better and better. I was initially scheduled for the Volta ai Pais Vasco but after being sick for one week after Paris-Nice, it would have been too hard for me, so I opted for La Sarthe instead and it's been a good race and a good experience."

Much more humble than six years ago when he was a successful neo-pro with a great future, being the winner of Tirreno-Adriatico at 21, Dekker added: "I hope to be a pro for the next ten years. I hope to win a stage at the Tour de France one day, or maybe a classic. I'd like to ride the Tour de France this year."

Prior to Dekker's fabulous rush, the last stage was contested on a high note with two major breakaways. In the second one formed of twelve riders including GreenEdge's Daniel Teklehaimanot, Anthony Delaplace (Saur-Sojasun) was the main threat for Durbridge. But the Australian didn't bother much.

"The teams of the sprinters had missed the break, so it was just a question of the race to come down to a final bunch sprint," explained the Australian who was almost relieved when Ventoso missed two intermediate sprints on the finishing circuit due to breakaways. "I was more nervous today. Yesterday I expected to lose the yellow jersey but today I had a chance of winning the race. This is only my second race as a pro in Europe I was already happy to finish in the top ten of the Three Days of De Panne. Now this one is a pretty big win."

Durbridge is the fourth rider to win the Circuit de la Sarthe at the age of 20. Bernard Hinault (1975), Greg LeMond (1980) and Thomas Lövkvist (2004) did it before him. "To win the time trial here was a satisfaction but to win the overall is like a dream," said the Australian champion for time who has the Tour de Romandie and the Tour of California next on his agenda.

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