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January 25, Stage 4: Modbury - Tanunda 126.5km

Greipel takes 13th stage victory in Tanunda

By:

Jane Aubrey

Published:

January 25, 03:29,

Updated:

January 26, 05:40

Crash inside final kilometre as Thomas retains ochre

Photos

Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) has measured his performance to perfection, winning the fourth stage of the Santos Tour Down Under in Tanunda, with a crash involving the Blanco and Orica GreenEdge trains marring the final kilometre.

Lampre - Merida's Roberto Ferrari was second in the sprint with Saxo - Tinkoff's Jonathan Cantwell scooting around the outside for third.

The overall lead of Geraint Thomas was not threatened heading into Saturday's queen stage with two ascents of Old Willunga Hill.
Greipel's stage victory was his 13th at the event, and it moves him ahead of the record set by Robbie McEwen.

"There was a bit of crosswind in the end and with the headwind the last two kilometres was pretty messy and the team did a good job to keep me in the front," the German said following the win. "With the headwind it wasn't easy but we waited as long as possible and I think we did the perfect lead out again."

Remarkably, the Lotto train was a man down with Marcel Sieberg missing having dropped his chain with 600 metres to go. Still, it was Greipel’s trusted last man Greg Henderson waving his fist in the air when his teammate crossed the finish line by a good bike length.

There were two crashes within the final 10 kilometres of the stage, with the first resulting in two Euskaltel Euskadi riders, Juan Jose Lobato and Jon Aberasturi picking themselves up off the ground, but it was the second incident inside the last kilometre that was most concerning. Orica GreenEdge riders Matt Goss, Daryl Impey and Jens Mouris all crashed on the left-hand side of the road, together with Adam Phelan, Zak Dempster (UniSA-Australia) and a Blanco’s Graeme Brown who appeared to somersault over his handlebars - which in turn brought down the riders around him. Vehicles were parked along the side of the road where the riders made impact with the ground, with no barriers installed. Orica GreenEdge reported that their riders involved in the crash all managed to finish the race.

The stage was dominated by a 118km breakaway by Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and UniSA-Australia's Damien Howson. The pair moved away from the bunch soon after the neutral zone ended and were only caught with eight kilometres left to race.

How it unfolded:

The very opening kilometres of the stage saw World Champion Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and Damien Howson (UniSA-Australia) move away from the front of the bunch.

Nathan Haas (Garmin Sharp) was an early casualty of the stage, reducing the team to just five men after Rohan Dennis failed to start the race having fallen victim to a viral infection earlier in the week. Haas later stated on Twitter that he had been struggling all week with a bug and was having difficulty breathing.

For the most part, the lead pair’s advantage over the peloton hovered around the 2:45 mark with the stage always one for the sprinters and therefore, teams were unwilling to let the gap go out too far.

The first and only KOM of the day at Humbug Scrub came after 30.2 kilometres with the 20-year-old Australian rider first across the line ahead of Gilbert. With the peloton’s chance shortly after came the earnest battle for the time bonuses with the Blanco pairing of Jack Bobridge and Graeme Brown ensuring that Sky could not lead out ochre jersey Geraint Thomas for an extra few seconds buffer at the end of the day.

Gilbert and Howson’s gap only exceeded the three minute-mark after 50km of racing, peaking at 3:10 before beginning a steady stead decline.

With two intermediate sprints kicking off the final 50km of the 126.5km stage it was the likes of Sky, Lotto Belisol and Argos Shimano driving the pace for the peloton.

The first sprint at the 80.6km mark saw Gilbert comfortably cross the line ahead of Howson but once again, the real action was in the peloton which followed. Sky had their leadout train wound up but hot on the wheel of Geraint Thomas was none other than Brown for Blanco, the sprint veteran snatching the last of the points.

The second sprint was less than 10km further down the road and the culminating pace resulted in the breakaway’s advantage being cut to just 35 seconds. Desperate to hang on just a little while longer, Gilbert lifted the pace with his companion to 80km/h stretching their lead to back over the minute. The Belgian again took maximum points at the next sprint, and it was a case of déjà vu with Brown ensuring any bonuses were out of reach for Thomas and Sky.

The break was gradually reeled in over the next 30kms and with eight kilometres left to race, the bunch was once again back together.

Gilbert was pleased with his efforts of the stage considering he was rendered out of contention for the overall after just two days of racing due to the pile-up on Corkscrew.

"I'm not in the game anymore, so for me it's training now," he explained. "It was a nice possibility to do some efforts today. It's important for me to go deep sometimes so I can get better condition."

Gilbert was also impressed with his young companion.

"He was good - always pulling and always motivated."

Posturing among the lead out trains began soon after with riders battling the windy conditions and getting organised across the road.

Key lead-out man for Greipel, Henderson described the sprint finish.

"Today was one where you couldn't hit the front too early because of the head-crosswind," he said. "Everyone wanted the right-hand side, so it was just waiting, waiting. I was yelling at the boys 'wait, wait' and when we picked the right time to go, we just had a beautiful run up the inside. We had to bump handlebars there a little bit in the final kilometre, but we had our line picked and we stuck to our line.

"Then Yogi took off and when I took off, I got him inside 200m. You can just tell with the speed he comes past, that's why I know he's won - because he's going 2-3km an hour faster than anyone on his wheel. And he's not going to slow down."

 

Results

For more about this week's racing see Cycling News HD

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