Tour de Luxembourg: Greipel secures stage 1 sprint victory

André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) won the bunch sprint during stage 1 at the Tour de Luxembourg on Thursday. The German sprinter galloped to the finish line ahead of Enrico Gasparotto (Wanty - Groupe Gobert) in second and Daniele Ratto (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling) in third.

"I can understand that it seemed quite easy on the finish photo, but that was thanks to a fantastic lead out," Greipel said in a team press release. "Dennis Vanendert en Boris Vallée did a great job to chase down the break together with Cofidis. In the last 30 kilometers, it was a little bit cat and mouse, but we caught the break with less than five kilometers to go. At three kilometers from the finish, Kenny Dehaes and Sean De Bie pulled for almost 2k and we had still four riders left for the final kilometer.”

Greipel's stage win launched him into the overall race lead ahead of stage 2's 186.3km race from Ell to Walferdingen on Friday. He started stage 1 in 11th place in the overall classification, but only nine seconds down from the previous day's prologue winner Adrien Petit (Cofidis).

Stage 1 offered the peloton a 212.6km race from Luxembourg to Clemency. A six-rider breakaway formed early in the race that included Matt Brammeier, Niki Terpstra (Etixx-QuickStep), Pit Schlecter (Leopard Development Team), Tom Devriendt (Wanty – Groupe Gobert), Federico Zurlo (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team) and Rick Ampler (D/Differdingen-Losch).

The small lead group gained an advantage of five minutes on the main field, and its last-man-standing, Brammeier, was caught by the main field with only two kilometres to go. Lotto Soudal launched Greipel into the final sprint where he won the stage.

"I had pretty good legs all day," Brammeier said. "I tried to catch the guys out with a big surge at 25km to go. I don't get my chance very often so I was super motivated to make the most of it. It was pretty close, I had to do a lot of the pushing towards the finish and the guys with me were pretty stuffed. With a little bit more horsepower I think we could have made it. Eventually I was caught around 2km to go and finished the day empty handed."

Greipel is currently leading the overall classification, and Petit remains the event's best young rider. Devriendt picked up full points at five of the six KOM ascents and is now leading the mountain competition. "It wasn't really my job to be in the breakaway but they didn't race for it. I jumped along. I knew there was only one jersey up for grabs today and that was the mountain jersey. That's what I worked hard for," Devriendt said.

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