Greipel Wins The Tour Down Under

Last updated : 24 January 2010 By Covsupport News Service

Andre Greipel, won the Santos Tour Down Under as the 2010 cycling season got underway.

On Day Six of the tour, the 130 riders moved to Adelaide for the final stage which comprised of twenty 4.5km laps around the streets.

HTC Colombia's Andre Greipel led the race going into the final day but it was Team Sky's Greg Henderson who took the first three second time bonus in the opening sprint on lap eight.

A second place, two laps later for Thomas Rohregger was enough to ensure that the Austrian ended the race as the King Of The Mountain winner and he was involved in a four man break which had a gap of thirty seconds before being caught.

They were caught as Lap 13 had the major sprint of the day which Robbie McEwen snatched to move him up to joint third in the General Claasification.

Tasmanian Wesley Sulzberger was 39 seconds off the lead at the start of the day but suprised many people by taking to the front group and doing a lot of work to put him in with a shout of taking the Ochra Jersey at the end of the race.

With four laps to go, the lead was 43 seconds and the teams with an interest including HTC Colombia, Rabobank, Team Sky and Lance Armstrong's Radio Shack started the chase of the trio of Sulzberger, Sabatini and Rowe.

It was caught with less than 3km to go and the sprint was on. Team Sky lead them out and it was their rider Chris Sutton who was first over the line beating team mate Greg Henderson into second place. Graham Brown finished third with Griepel in the pack to ensure that he won the race General Classification for the second time

"The team did a really good job and I'm very happy today", said Greipel to Paul Sherwen after the race.

In other cycling news, HTC-Columbia's Mark Cavendish will change his 2010 season start and begin in Ruta del Sol on February 17 due to an ongoing dental problem that has limited his training.

"We want to take all precautions and ensure that Mark has fully recovered and is able to get in some extra base training for the long season ahead of him," says Team Manager Rolf Aldag to the HTC Colombia Press Office. "His season goals remain the same and he is looking forward to performing as planned in major Spring races like Milan-San Remo and Flanders before his focus shifts toward the stage racing."