Lotto Soudal’s Andre Greipel has won the opening stage of the 20th Santos Tour Down Under.
130 riders, took to the start of an 145km stage from Port Adelaide to Lyndoch with the real start at Birkenhead.
Dimension Data’s Nicholas Dlamini, EF Education’s Will Clarke and Scott Bowden of UniSA got away and were over two minutes ahead after four kilometres.
That lead went out to five minutes on a sunny day with the rain which blighted the Women’s race seemingly gone.
The lead dropped to 4.20 with 21kms gone to a peloton which included Peter Sagan of Bora Hansgrohe.
The day’s climb was at Humburg Scrub after 38.6kms and it was Scot Bowden who started the move but it was the South African Nicholas Dlamini who took the ten points and put himself into the Subaru KOM blue spotted jersey for stage two.
The peloton were 4.30 down to Dlamini and Clarke with Bowden having dropped back to the peloton and the pair were 4.10 ahead after fifty kilometres.
The peloton picked up the pace and got the gap down to 2.58 with 93kms left.
Into Williamstown and the lead was down to 2.50 with Will Clarke pumping out 180 watts as they headed towards Lyndoch for the first of three closing laps of 26kms.
Their lead was at 2.25 as they went under the banner to start the third laps as temperatures rose to eighty degrees.
The first sprint came at Cockatoo Valley and Clarke took the five points and the three seconds bonus with Dlamini second and jhonatan Restrepo of Katusha Alpecin taking the single second for third place.
Clarke took the second sprint ahead of Dlamini and Nathan Haas as the gap dropped to 1.12.
Clarke was first over the line at the bell lap after shedding Dlamini and did well to keep away for as long as he did before the peloton got him with nine kilometres to go.
Caleb Ewan was the first to go in the sprint but Lotto Soudal’s Andre Greipel timed it superbly and won ahead of Ewan, Peter Sagan, Elia Viviani and Consonni.
KEV MONKS FOR DIGITAL SPORTS GROUP
Source: DSG
