Safely marking chief rival Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) on the final stage, Simon Gerrans today ran out as overall victor in the Santos Tour Down Under and completely a superb start for his GreenEdge team.
The new UCI ProTeam was riding its first WorldTour race on home soil and pulled off the overall win with Gerrans, who took the race leader’s orange jersey yesterday when he finished second to Valverde at Old Willunga Hill.
The two were level on time and separated by finishing positions alone; the gap couldn’t have been tighter, but Gerrans knew that he simply needed to ensure that Valverde didn’t gain any time over him on this final 90 kilometre stage.
He and his GreenEdge team marked the Spaniard, who was not able to get clear nor to pick up bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints or the final gallop to the line.
Double stage winner Andre Greipel clocked up another victory in that final dash, beating Mark Renshaw, Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre – ISD), Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ – BigMat) plus the rest of the field to the line. Valverde and Gerrans rolled in 25th and 27th.
Gerrans won the Australian road race championships two weeks ago and now has another trophy to add to his collection. “When I was told yesterday that I was getting the leader's jersey, I didn't feel any pressure at all,” he beamed. “It was just a nice surprise. I knew it would give us a tough job for this last stage, but as it turns out, I can't be happier. This is just fantastic. I can't thank the GreenEdge team enough for this victory.”
Valverde indicated yesterday that it was going to be tough for him to win the race, and so it proved. Gerrans knew they had to focus on one rider alone. “We had a tough task today to control Alejandro Valverde who is a Classics rider. The last lap was very fast,” Gerrans said. “This is an even sweeter victory than my first one here in 2006. It gives me the opportunity to thank for the first time the Ryan family (GreenEdge team owners Gerry and Andrew) and (GreenEdge General Manager) Shayne Bannan for putting this team together. It couldn't be a better start for us.”
He also thanked veteran sprinter Robbie McEwen, who has the record for stages in the race with a dozen, but who passed up the chance to try for another to instead help his team-mate. Gerrans said that McEwen guided him through the last stage and made sure he stayed out of trouble.
“I'm just really happy and proud to be part of this team here at the Santos Tour Down Under,” said McEwen afterwards. “I'm not retiring today - that was my last Aussie race officially, but the season's not done. I am still going to race for another four months after this.
“It's a fantastic way to go out as far as Australia racing is concerned. I joined the team and was really excited about being a part of the GreenEDGE project racing in an Aussie team, our national team. It was all about winning the jersey and that's the success for the team, it feels like a personal win to be a part of it.”
Big group gets clear early on:
The final stage took in 20 laps of the Elder Park circuit, with the riders covering 4.5 kilometres each time round. Temperatures were once again scorching, but this didn’t dissuade a number of riders from trying to prevent a bunch sprint.
A large group went clear early on and with bonus seconds available in the intermediate sprints, GreenEdge was happy to give it some rope and thus mop up that time. It had two riders present, namely Australian TT champion Luke Durbridge and last year’s Santos Tour Down Under Cameron Meyer, while Bernard Sulzberger and Jay McCarthy (UniSA-Australia), popular veteran Jens Voigt (RadioShack Nissan), Martijn Maaskant (Garmin-Barracuda), Mathew Hayman (Sky Procycling), Gorka Izagirre (Euskatel-Euskadi), Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team),Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol), Sergey Lagutin (Vacansoleil-DCM), Davide Cimolai (Lampre-ISD), William Bonnet (FDJ-BigMat), Sergio Paulinho and Jonas Jorgensen (Saxo Bank) were also there.
However strong chasing by the Rabobank team plus the decision of its leader Michael Matthews to jump across to the group caused the peloton to react and bring the break back.
The riders were reeled in before the first Jayco intermediate sprint; Durbridge kicked again and went clear to try to absorb some of the time bonuses, and was joined and then pipped by Davide Cimolai (Lampre-ISD). Third place went to Garmin-Barracuda’s Jack Bauer.
Threat to Gerrans’ lead:
After that sprint, things came back together and then Jan Bakelants (Radioshack-Nissan) bolted clear. He was trying to move up to sixth overall and needed to make up two seconds on Sky Procycling’s Edvald Boasson Hagen. He duly did so, while Meyer got across and was next across the line at that second intermediate sprint. Bauer was once again third.
Former world under 23 champion Romain Sicard (Euskatel-Euskadi) jumped across from the bunch to join the two leaders, and they began to pull further ahead of the peloton. Bakelandts became race leader on the road, prompting Meyer to stop working so as not to threaten Gerrans’ overall lead. The latter then attacked alone with approximately five kilometres remaining and held an small gap for several minutes. However he was hauled back inside the final kilometre, after which Griepel beat Renshaw for the victory.
“Lotto-Belisol has just been amazing in leading me out to my third win of the week,” said the German afterwards. “It looks easy but it's not. I was nowhere in the front on GC (overall) this year but I'm happy with the sprint finishes. I always like to come to South Australia. It's just nice to start the new season here rather than train in Europe.”
He’s certainly had a successful time in Australia, winning three stages in the Santos Tour Down Under and also taking the warm-up event, the Down Under Classic.
Valverde was also pleased, given that he’s shown strong form in his first race back after a long ban. “I am very happy with finishing second in the Santos Tour Down Under. The outcome is much better than I expected when I came to Australia,” he said.
“Today was a super fast stage with a bit of wind that made it even more difficult. I'm very happy.”
RadioShack Nissan rider Tiago Machado was third, with Michael Rogers (Sky Pro Cycling) fourth and 21 year old Rohan Dennis (UniSA-Australia) fifth. The latter also took the Cycle Instead best young rider trophy plus the Skoda King of the Mountains classification.
However he admitted that he was worried about the initial fast pace. “I wasn't sure I was actually going to finish this race. I was pretty happy it slowed down, I think everybody was,” he said. “With that surge at the start it almost slowed it down and made it a little bit easier towards the end."
Another young rider who was happy with his lot was Sky's Boasson Hagen, who held onto the Jayco Sprint Classification jersey ahead of Greipel.
“I would have liked to be more up in the final stage, but I managed to keep the jersey so that's a good thing,” he said. “It’s an early start to the season and to be on top form now is difficult. I'm happy to be on okay form and I can still get better."
Most of the riders will now head back to Europe, where they will hope that their Australian racing will give them an edge over the other riders who have not yet competed this year. They'll all have to adjust to cooler temperatures, but will otherwise have an advantage in the early races there.
Also see: 25 images from today's final stage of the race
Plus: Video summary of last day of competition