By Gerard Cromwell
Simon Gerrans took his third overall victory at the Tour Down under yesterday as German sprinter Andre Greipel took a record 16th career stage win in the event in the final criterium in Adelaide.
Greipel outsprinted Omega Pharma - QuickStep duo Mark Renshaw and Andrew Fenn in a final kilometre dominated by his Lotto Belisol team.
"Chapeau to my team-mates, they rode incredibly fast so I could save myself for the last moment," said Greipel. "This is a very nice victory for us. It was difficult to keep the peloton together but everyone knew where we’d start the lead out. This new circuit is really fast but we have enough experience in the team to adjust ourselves to a new course. I’m really happy to come out of the Santos Tour Down Under as a winner again."
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Gerrans too was happy with his record, a third overall victory in the race, which came on Australia Day.
He won by 1 second from Cadel Evans (BMC), with Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) in third a further 9 seconds down.
"I've got my third Tour Down Under win thanks to an outstanding team. This is an Australian team, on Australia Day, in a World Tour event, what else could I ask for?”
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There was more good news for the Orica GreenEdge squad as they also won the team classification and went straight to the top of the UCI WorldTour team classification too.
Ireland’s Philip Deignan reflected on a first week with Team Sky that saw teammate Richie Porte win a stage and finish fourth overall.
“It’s been a good week just to learn how the team operates, it’s certainly different to any other team I’ve been on, the way the group works together,” said the Letterkenny man.
“Ive certainly learned a lot this week and I’m looking forward to the next races coming up. I’ll ride maybe in Mallorca or Ruta del Sol depending on jet lag and how I recover after this.”
Deignan’s teammate Richie Porte was also happy despite narrowly missing out on a podium spot.
"Obviously it would have been nice to be on the podium," Porte said, "But to win on the Willunga stage yesterday with that crowd was consolation for just missing out. It's been a good week and the team's been incredible. I think we're pretty happy with how it all went.”
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Highlights of stage 6, concluding Adelaide circuit race
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