Greipel grabs stage win in Great Yarmouth

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With the British "mountains" out of the way, it was back to business for the sprinters on the longest stage of this year's Tour of Britain which saw the riders tackle 118 miles through the Norfolk countryside on stage 6. With an average speed of 28.5mph, Andre Greipel (HTC-Columbia) took his second stage of this year's race around Britain in a full-up sprint on the seafront at Great Yarmouth.

Borut Borzic (Vacansoleil) took second place and moved up from third place in the general classification yesterday to second today thanks to time bonuses gained along the way. Yesterday's second place GC rider Richie Porte (Saxo Bank) fell back to third. The day's action didn't change the GC with winner Greipel's teammate Michael Albasini keeping the yellow jersey which he has held since his win in Swansea on stage 3. Albasini did, however, have his lead cut by two seconds to one minute and 26 seconds.

Although on paper this was a sprinters' stage, the script was nearly changed by Cameron Meyer and Jaroslav Marycz who did a two-man time trial for much of the stage but got swallowed up a bit over a mile before the finish line. Heading out from King's Lynn on a sunny morning, the remaining 84 starters were soon strung out by the early high speed as they headed past the Queen of England's country residence at Sandringham.

The young Australian Meyer (brother of Travis) spent much of the day at the front of the race, initially in the company of the British rider Jeremy Hunt (Cervelo Test Team), before he sat up leaving the attacking Garmin-Transitions rider to carry on alone. However, Meyer was soon joined by Jaroslav Marycz (Team Saxo Bank) and the pair rode well together building up a maximum lead over the peloton of over eight minutes.

The bunch seemed reluctant to chase although the Sky team, and particularly Bradley Wiggins, had other ideas and spent much of the time on the front chasing down the duo in order to place their man Greg Henderson, who leads the points competition, at the front in Great Yarmouth.

With 15 miles to ride, the pair still had a lead of 2:35 over the bunch. With 10 miles to go this lead was down to a minute and Marycyz decided to call it a day but the indefatigable Meyer carried on regardless. With it seeming that the lone rider could win the sprinters stage the fairy tale came to an end within two kilometres of the finish line as he was swallowed up by the bunch. This opened the door for the predicted bunch sprint and it was his HTC teammates Bert Grabsch and Mark Renshaw who delivered Greipel to the line to take the win. The pair had to work extra hard because HTC are down to only four riders having lost Tony Martin and Marco Pinotti.

Not surprisingly Cameron Meyer won the combativity award for the most aggressive rider of the day. Johnny Hoogerland held on to the king of the mountains jersey (although the hills today were token gestures) and Michael Golas keeps the sprint jersey.

Following his win in the holiday town of Great Yarmouth, Greipel described the stage as "hard". The 28-year-old went on, "We were not so fresh at all with just four riders left in the race, so it was quite a good powerful beginning to the stage for the team. We tried to keep the breakaway as small as possible as we were all pretty tired from the last two days.

Finally, a journalist said to Greipel, "Next year you'll be riding for..." The German interrupted the journalist and said, "Don't ask me questions about next year." The journalist replied, "Why not?" Greipel then said, "Because I'm riding for HTC-Columbia." The journalist came back with, "So, Andre, when can I ask you?" The tactful German laughed and replied, "The first of January, next year," and left as quickly as he had arrived.