Andre Greipel’s early-season form continued with a photo finish victory in the opening stage of the Tour Down Under after outsprinting Alessandro Petacchi in a crash-marred finale.
- Andre Greipel remonstrates with Alessandro Petacchi after claiming victory
Lotto-Belisol rider Greipel, who won the pre-Tour criterium on Sunday, complained Lampre-ISD’s Petacchi had interfered with his sprint, although the race commissaires ruled the 2010 Tour de France green jersey winner was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
“I’m lucky that I won today,” said Greipel. “There was a massive crash with 800 metres to go. My pedal got touched and I lost positions from about 5th to 20th. But I managed to bridge the gap.”
“[Then] Petacchi went from left to right, he didn’t care about the crash. He’s a big star but he shouldn’t do this. Two of my team-mates crashed as a result. All I care about after winning this stage is how they are.”
- The Lotto-Belisol rider leads the general classification by 10 seconds after stage one
The crash involved more than 20 riders and saw Frédéric Guesdon (FDJ-BigMat), Jürgen Roelandts (Lotto-Belisol) and Matteo Montaguti (Ag2r La Mondiale) hospitalised with a possible broken hip, possible fractured collarbone and suspected broken collarbone, according to early reports.
GreenEdge veteran Stuart O’Grady put the crash down to a strong headwind temperatures close to 40c. The 2007 Paris-Roubaix winner said: “There were a lot of tired guys out there. It really does have have a lot of effect on guys, the heat and it causes slow reactions and you can see a crash is always going to happen.”
Eduard Vorganov, Martin Kohler, Marcello Pavarin and Dennis Rohan formed the day’s break within the first 10km of the 149km stage from Prospect to Clare and gained an advantage of more than 11 minutes.
Rohan attacked the group with 40km to go but the escapees were reeled in by the chasing sprint trains, led by Sky, GreenEdge, and Lotto-Belisol, to setup the final bunch gallop.
Petacchi looked to take advantage of the crash, reportedly caused by a spectator, jumping early as the the downhill sprint wound up but Greipel, who leads the general classification by 10 seconds thanks to a time bonus, reacted to underline his red-hot form.
Highlights
Tour Down Under stage one
1) Andre Greipel (GER) – Lotto-Belisol – 4:33:40
2) Alessandro Petacchi (ITA) – Lampre-ISD
3) Yauheni Hutarovich (BLR) – FDJ-BigMat
4) Fabio Sabatini (ITA) – Liquigas-Cannondale
5) Daniele Bennati (ITA) – Radioshack-Nissan-Trek
6) Chris Sutton (AUS) – Team Sky
7) Jonathan Cantwell (AUS) – SaxoBank
8] Xavier Florencio Cabre (SPA) – Katusha
9) Mark Renshaw (AUS) – Rabobank
10) Manuel Belletti (Ita) – Ag2r La Mondiale
General classification
1) Andre Greipel (GER) – Lotto-Belisol – 4:33:30
2) Alessandro Petacchi (ITA) – Lampre-ISD +4”
3) Martin Kohler (SWI) – BMC
4) Yauheni Hutarovich (BLR) – FDJ-BigMat +6”
5) Rohan Dennis (AUS) – UNI SA–Australia +7”
6) Eduard Vorganov (RUS) – Katusha +8”
7) Marcello Pavarin (ITA) Vacansoleil-DCM – +9”
8] Fabio Sabatini (ITA) – Liquigas-Cannondale +10”
9) Daniele Bennati (ITA) – RadioShack-Nissan-Trek
10) Chris Sutton (AUS) – Team Sky
