Two's a treat for Greipel

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Thousands of fans cheered in the German-influenced township of Hahndorf as André Greipel (HTC-Columbia) claimed his second victory from as many stages at this year’s Tour Down Under. The German giant has a growing fan base in Hahndorf, having won both stages he’s contested that finish in the town, with his first in 2008.

“Today we wanted to give a chance to the breakaway but the other teams wanted to chase them back,” said Greipel. “We have a good team here to maybe hold on to the leader’s jersey, but there’s two really hard stages coming up.”

Behind Greg Henderson (Team Sky) managed second place, despite being less than impressed with the tactics employed by third placed Robbie McEwen (Katusha). Without a lead-out train as strong as a Sky or HTC-Columbia McEwen decided to take Henderson’s place in the Team Sky train, according to the New Zealander.

“We mixed in with Columbia for the lead-out, then the boys just went full gas with one kilometre to go,” said Henderson. “Chris Sutton couldn’t quite get in front, then McEwen came and bashed me off CJ’s wheel, so I’m not really sure what he was up to there. I might have to ask him later on.”

The New Zealander described the incident as being “no big deal”, admitting it was difficult to know if the result would have been any different without McEwen’s invasion.

Henderson wasn’t the only foreign rider unhappy with the local’s approach to the finish line. BMC Racing Team’s Danilo Wyss thinks he could have improved on his seventh placing if it weren’t for fifth place Graeme Brown (Rabobank.

“I was directly on the wheel of Greipel when Graeme Brown came at me from the left and forced me off my perfect line,” said Wyss. “If that hadn’t happened, I certainly would have finished higher up.”

The stage had some good synergies for the Matthew White-directed Garmin-Transitions outfit, with the stage starting in Jack Bobridge’s hometown and ending at the sight of White’s stage victory over McEwen in 2005. Despite that it narrowly missed out on the podium, with Robert Hunter taking fourth place.

Greipel now has a 14 second lead over Henderson and RadioShack’s Gert Steegmans, with the pair tied on time. McEwen and Jurgen Roeland (Omega Pharma-Lotto) are a further two seconds behind.

Déjà vu Down Under

They say there’s no place for politics in sport. Sadly that statement is incorrect, which the Tour Down Under proved today as the start was delayed by five minutes to accommodate a late-running Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Given he was merely there to shake the hands of Cadel Evans and Lance Armstrong, not announce any new funding initiatives for the sport, it’s lucky for Mr Sheen – erm, Mr Rudd – this isn’t an election year or he may have sacrificed the pedal-powered vote.

Once the race commenced the stage quickly took on a similar shape to yesterday’s stage – save for the mass pile-up before kilometre zero. Omega Pharma – Lotto teammates Mickael Delage and Olivier Kaisen broke away from the peloton with UniSA-Australian National Team rider David Kemp, forming the day’s main breakaway.

Gorka Izaguirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) attempted to bridge the gap created, but when Milram’s Dominik Roels and a Saxo Bank rider attempted to follow the peloton increased its speed to swallow the trio. Typically Euskaltel-Euskadi threw another rider towards the move in Mikel Nieve, but he too was caught before the first intermediate sprint.

Kemp yelled for the Omega Pharma – Lotto riders to go ahead and win the first sprint in Lyndoch, with Delage crossing the line ahead of Kemp and Kaisen. The order was identical at the second sprint in Mount Torrens, which allowed Kemp to break away up the sharp Old Checker Hill Rd climb to keep his teammate Tim Roe in the King of the Mountains classification lead.

“I was definitely just going for a stage win,” said Kemp. “I wasn’t that interested in the King of the Mountain, I was just taking the points off of the other two guys to keep Tim in the jersey.

“Once I got the gap on the hill I thought I’d attempt to time trial to the finish,” said Kemp of the nearly 40 kilometres remaining. “Unfortunately the other two guys caught back up. That was good in a way because they sort of helped me for a little bit.”

While the gap had gone out past 11 minutes during the 133.5-kilometre stage, it was wound back to around four by the KOM. The breakaway riders travelled at 120 km/h down the descent, but as the Omega Pharma – Lotto riders were catching Kemp as fast as the peloton closed in on the trio.

With nine kilometres remaining the breakaway was brought to an end by a HTC-Columbia and Sky-led peloton. The teams rounded the final turn onto the 1.1-kilometre finish, which bobbles in elevation but is dead straight, where Greipel again proved to be the field’s best sprinter. 

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