The International Cycling Union WorldTour season kicked off Sunday, Jan. 15, with the Prologue stage of the 14th Santos Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia. Nineteen teams of seven riders each headed for the Antipodes for the first major race of 2012.
This was the first outing for a lot of reformed squads: Omega Pharma-Lotto split and reformed as Omega-Pharma-Quick Step and Lotto Belisol; Garmin-Cervelo was back as Garmin-Barracuda; and Radio Shack is now Radio Shack Nissan. The breakup of HTC sent talent spinning in many directions; Mark Renshaw is no longer an HTC lead-out man but the main sprinter for Rabobank, and HTC sprinter Andre Greipel is now the speedster for Lotto-Belisol.
The Tour Down Under started with the Down Under Classic, a 30-lap, 32-mile prologue through the streets of Adelaide’s East End. The 132-rider field snaked around tight corners and blasted through four sprint stages, vying for a 500 euros ($632) prize per sprint, in front of a crowd of 112,000.
Andre Greipel, who won the TDU in 2008 and 2010, showed that he is on excellent form to try for the hat trick, winning the final sprint of the prologue.
A group of six riders attacked from the starting line—mostly riders not fast enough to contest the final sprint but strong enough to race for the cash against each other. Shortly after Jose Ivan Gutierrez of Movistar won the first sprint, the peloton caught them. A nine-rider break developed, and Aussie Nathan Haas of Garmin-Barracuda took the next three intermediate sprints.
After the final paid intermediate sprint on lap 20, the breakaway eased up and the serious contender came to the fore. Britain’s Sky Procycling took the lead with two laps to go, pushing the pace in an effort to shut out the other teams, but it was too early. Lotto let Sky break the wind while Garmin tried to move up on the left.
Sky’s train broke down by lap 29, with a pair of Lotto riders second and third wheel, as the pace picked up. Heading into the final lap Lotto had five riders in line, led by Adam Hanson, with Sky pursuing. Halfway through the lap Sky pushed through on the right, but Lotto was ready—the Belgian team squeezed to the inside on the final left-hand bend, pushing Sky out of the lead.
Lotto had Gregory Henderson and Jurgen Roelandts pulling for Greipel, while Sky was down to two riders, with Mathew Hayman leading Edvald Boasson Hagen. When Hayman dropped off, Boasson Hagen had to push to catch Henderson and FGGreipel; as he came up on Greipel, the German launched his own sprint. Those extra few yards Boasson Hagen spent chasing made the difference as Greipel outpowered the Sky rider to take the win.
Monday is a day off for the riders; on Tuesday the six-stage Tour Down Under begins with a 149 kilometers of mostly uphill road with a lot of head winds and head-crosswinds, with a 7-km downhill finish. There is one Cat 3 climb midway through—with the winds and the hills, a breakaway could sneak off but it is highly unlikely the peloton would let it happen in the first stage. Look for a very high-speed bunch sprint to decide this one.
