Darryl Impey has won the 20th Santos Tour Down Under.
Darryl Impey of Mitchelton Scott was in the Ochre jersey for the start of the sixth and final stage which was over 90kms around the streets of Adelaide, ahead of BMC’s Richie Porte on countback.
125 riders started the stage with thirteen getting into an early break on the opening lap of twenty and soon being reeled in.
On lap three of a stage which started in King William Road, five riders in Valerio Agnoli of Bahrain Merida, Antoine Duschene, Truis Korsaeth, Alex Frame and Nathan Earle, broke but were caught and AG2R’s Mikail Cherel was the next to attack and fail.
Logan Owen and Korsaeth were able to take an eight second lead with Laurent Didier joining them to help push the lead out to twenty seconds.
With the peloton riding at 57kph, the break was 1.22 ahead on lap seven and 1.56 as Owen, the most aggressive rider of the stage took the first sprint of the day.
Owen stayed clear and was joined by Ben O’Connor of Dimension Data, who was first over the category three KOM climb on Montefiore Hill, a competition long sewn up by his team mate Nicholas Dlamini.
O’Connor took the second sprint after 54kms and pushed on with Logan, having a 2.20 lead over the peloton on lap fourteen and 1.15 over the chasing Antoine Duschene, who was reeled in on lap fifteen.
Logan Owen took the points on the second climb on lap sixteen and pushed out on his own, leaving O’Connor to be caught by the pack.
On lap eighteen, Owen was nervously looking over his shoulder having seen his lead reduced to thirteen seconds and it was not long before he was caught and the sprint trains came to the fore.
Onto the final lap and there was a crash on the corner of Victoria Square which did not affect any of the main contenders.
There was another crash on the corner but Lotto Soudal’s Andrei Greipel came up and took the stage victory, his second of this race ahead of Caleb Ewan, Peter Sagan, Phil Bauhaus and Elia Viviani.
Darryl Impey of Mitchelton Scott finished safely and he took the overall victory ahead of BMC’s Richie Porte.
Peter Sagan of Bora Hansgrohe won the Sprint competition, Nicholas Dlamini of Dimension Data won the KOM competition with Egan Bernal the best Young Rider.
KEV MONKS FOR DIGITAL SPORTS GROUP
Source: DSG
