Greipel grabs number one in Tanunda

Image 1 of 64

After a week of fingers pointing at him as favourite for this year's Tour Down Under, André Greipel has backed up the tag with a win on stage one in Tanunda. With HTC-Columbia still smarting after defeat in the Cancer Council Helpline Classic on Sunday, Allan Peiper's riders controlled the second half of the race with a three-rider break spending most of the day off the front of the bunch.

“We came here to win a stage and now we’ve won one, so our main goal has been reached. Everything else is now on top of that,” said Greipel. “We waited and spoke with the other teams but nobody wanted to ride with us, so Bert Grabsch chased them down just like he does in time trials.

“Of course it’s just the first stage, we have to take the responsibility to win every race now as we have in the last two years,” said Greipel. “So for sure that’s the focus now again.”

Asked if winning stages was his answer to defending the yellow jersey through to Sunday, Greipel mustered enough breath to share a joke. “And no crashes,” he responded, referring to the collision with a parked Police motorbike that took him out of last year’s race.

The news wasn’t as good for defending champion Allan Davis, who is all but out of the general classification contention. Davis’ Astana squad didn’t bring radios to Tour Down Under, leaving all within the Kazakh team unaware he was at the peloton’s rear when it split on the climb.

As Davis’ teammates kept a watchful eye on the action up front, they were blind to the fact Davis was back in the second group. Likewise Davis wasn’t aware the race had split until it was too late.

“It was just a bit of a miscommunication, we didn’t have radios,” said Davis. “I was just riding within myself up the climb and found myself 50 metres behind my teammates and they didn’t realise. They just started pulling and I didn’t realise I was on the back so it left me behind.”

After talking about the importance of a taking a stage victory in its debut last week, Team RadioShack came frustratingly close to doing exactly that on the first ProTour stage of 2010. After half a season without racing Belgian rider Gert Steegmans couldn’t overcome his German rival in the closing metres, forcing him to settle from second, ahead of Omega Pharama-Lotto’s Jurgen Roelandts.

The UniSA-Australian National Team ensured it continued tradition by featuring in the day’s main breakaway with Tim Roe. The up and coming rider, who has signed with Trek-Livestrong for this season, launched a solo attack from the three strong lead group on the day’s only climb.

Roe’s hard work was undone when he overshot a turn on the descent, leaving him riding on the grass near one of the Barossa Valley’s many vineyards. Still, Roe claimed both the King of the Mountains and Most Aggressive Rider jerseys following the opening stage.

“I thought if I got to Mengler’s Hill with the two guys I would have a fair crack at getting away, but I wasn’t going super like I was hoping but I’m still happy with it,” said Roe. “Once I got over the top of Mengler’s I knew I wasn’t travelling good enough. The time gap just came down way too quickly.”

BMC Racing Team’s Cadel Evans, the current International Cycling Union World Road Champion, had a tough start to his first race on home shores in the rainbow jersey. Evans was amongst the many caught up in a crash before the race had barely began, the consequence of which was some handy on the road repair work to his shoe using electrical tape.

“It was hard but that’s always the first race of the year,” said Evans. “With a really good quality field here when it goes fast it really goes fast but mostly for me personally just getting everything going with the team and being at work on the road, it’s good.

“I think overall for a team that came here without a sprinter to have two jerseys is already a good start,” he added.

Season opens with a bang

Nearly immediately after the race radio announced the first ProTour race of 2010 was underway the voice transmitted a simple message: crash. Just like that within 300 metres of the start nearly half the peloton was on the ground as an Euskaltel-Euskadi rider crashed mid-peloton after hitting a reflector on the road…and just as another Euskaltel-Euskadi made a solo move off the front.

While Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) didn’t get caught in the drama, Evans did. “I started on the front row and still managed to get in the middle of it, but that happens and from there on in everyone was a bit nervous of course,” said Evans. “I had a one in two chance of being in it.”

Despite the incident Gorka Izaguirre's solo attack never gained any serious ground and as Jonathan Cantwell (UniSA-Australian National Team) waited for a replacement bike the Spanish rider was returned to the peloton.

Shortly after Izaguirre was captured a trio – Tim Roe (UniSA), Martin Kohler (BMC Racing) and Biel Kadri (Ag2R La Mondiale) – moved ahead of the peloton. The gap grew quickly. Two minutes, then five, seven right out until it nudged the 10 minute mark.

Having attacked 20km into the stage, the trio rode together until the KOM at Menglers Hill outside Tanunda, when the young South Australian Roe attacked in a solo bid for glory. As the race neared 20km remaining the break's time off the front was over, with Kadri, then Kohler and finally Roe, aided by the off-road excursion, succumbing to the tempo set by the HTC-Columbia crew.

Despite a flurry of late attacks from accomplished climber Thomas Rohregger (Milram), the irresistible force of Greipel's group of men proved too much, with the German winning ahead of Belgian sprinting duo Steegmans and Roelandts.

Results