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Sunday, September 7, 2008 Ale-jet hits the afterburners by VeloNation Press at 2:10 PM EST   comments Categories: Pro Cycling   Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi, now riding for the LPR Brakes - Ballan team, opened up his account at The Tour of Britain today as he held off Rob Hayles (Team GB) and Magnus Backstedt (Garmin - H30) to take victory in London. This was Petacchi's first appearance since his controversial doping ban from the sport. Happy with his team, the emotional rider told organizers, "I'm very very happy with the win. Today I stayed good and my team raced very well. Now I think I start a new life of cycling, with a new team. My team did very good work in the last 2km, and on the last lap I stayed in the wheels of Backstedt, but I did a good sprint, which is a big relief." A promising eight-man break that stayed away for more than half of the race was the focus of the day. It contained Kristian House (Rapha-Condor - Recycling.co.uk) and Tom Southam (Team GB) riding on home turf along with Aussies Simon Clarke (South Australia.com - AIS) and Chris Sutton (Garmin - H30). It also contained Daryl Impey (Barloworld) and major horsepower in Anders Lund (CSC-Saxo Bank), Vicente Reynes (Team Colombia), and Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes - Ballan). The main field kept a close watch on the breakaway never letting them have enough time to get out of reach. In the end it was a reborn Petacchi that took the honors by winning the day and capping it off with the first leaders jersey. Rounding out the jersey holders was CSC-Saxo Bank's Anders Lund taking the Sprints Jersey and Danilo Di Luca taking the most aggressive rider award.       comments Follow @Pro_Cycling Tweet Subscribe via RSS or daily email Contact the editor about this article