Howard strikes again at Challenge Mallorca

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Orica GreenEdge scored double success in the final race of the Challenge Mallorca, delivering Leigh Howard to his second sprint victory in the Trofeo Platja de Muro, and bagging the mountains classification on the day thanks to Michael Matthews.

Howard out-sprinted Maarten Wynants (Blanco) and Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) by a large margin to win on the day.

"It was a fantastic team effort that I was pleased to finish with a victory," Howard said.

The victory was aided in part by Matthews, who was in the breakaway but after taking out three of the four mountain sprints on offer, he dropped back to help the lead-out train.

"We really wanted a rider in the early break," said Orica's directeur sportif Neil Stephens. "This took the pressure off us and also gave us an extra rider up the road ahead of the finish."

The day's break began only 33km into the stage, with a large group going clear including Xabier Zandio (Sky), Angel Madrazo (Movistar), Pierre Serry (Omega Pharma - Quick-Step), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel Euskadi), Robert Gesink and Jos Van Emden (Blanco), Michael Mathews (Orica GreenEdge), Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida), Bjorn Thurau (Europcar) and Christophe Pfingstein (CT Rijke Shanks).

The hilly parcours reduced the number of sprinters remaining in the peloton, according to Howard. "At the top of the final climb the only sprinters left were Ben Swift, Rojas, Robbie Hunter and myself. It was good for our team because we still had about six or seven guys left – Christian Meier, Wes Sulzberger, Pieter Weening, Sebastian Langeveld, Michael Albasini and myself."

Once the breakaway was brought back through the efforts of both Orica GreenEdge and Movistar, there were less than 40 riders left in the leading group.

"Movistar's riders led out Rojas and he hit out too early, consequently fading to finish fifth. I went around the righthand side and ended up with a comfortable win," said Howard.

It has been a solid warm-up for the season for the young Australian, who is looking forward to taking on the first race of the year in Belgium, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. "It's a realistic goal to give it a good nudge in Belgium. In 2011, my good mate Chris Sutton won the event and last season Mark Cavendish took the victory, so it'd be a fantastic race to win.

"After that Paris-Nice is the next big tour and I'd certainly like to do better there this year than last year. I've just been trying to focus on being more consistent in my sprinting and so far it looks like it's working!"

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