Greipel wins and Albasini leads stage six in Britain
Andre Greipel took his 20th season victory with his second stage win in the Tour of Britain, despite his team being short-staffed. The HTC-Columbia rider sprinted to the finish line in Great Yarmouth ahead of Borut Bozic, Lucas Sebastien Haedo,
and Greg Henderson for a stage six victory, adding to his stage one victory on Saturday.
“We were not so fresh at all with just four riders left in the race,” said Greipel. “So it was quite a good powerful beginning to the stage for the team. We tried to keep the breakaway as small as possible as we were all pretty tired from the last two days.”
The foursome finished at the head of a 42-man bunch which did not include the overall leader, Greipel’s teammate Michael Albasini, who finished six seconds behind. Albasini still remains in the overall lead despite a short-lived stomach bug which swept through
the team, causing Tony Martin and Marco Pinotti to abandon the race.
"Tony is like a locomotive, once he is riding his bike as fast as possible, he never can stop so this is a really big thing that we lost him,” said Greipel. “I hope we are able to defend the jersey until London."
“It’s nearly better,” said Albasini to VeloNation. “I couldn’t really eat energy gels as my stomach is still sensitive, but I feel a lot better than yesterday. I should be okay – I just need to replace the energy I lost, eat plenty of carbohydrates.”
The stage was set with a three-man breakaway, which gained a lead of more than seven minutes before Team Sky set a breakneck pace, managing to catch the leading breakaway rider, Cameron Meyer, in the last kilometre of the stage.
“Sky had to chase the breakaway down, so there was no one left to do the lead-out,” said Greipel. “We were just sitting and with two kilometres to go, we went, and that’s how it was.”
Borut Bozic, for Vacansoleil, who was the second past the finish line, is also in second-place overall, 1:26 behind Albasini, relegating Saxo Bank’s Richie Porte to third place overall. Greg Henderson stands fourth in the stage and overall 1:33 behind the
race leader. Greipel has been mute about his expiring contract with HTC-Columbia. After the stage, a journalist attempted to broach the subject. "Don't ask me questions about next year," Greipel said.
"So, Andre, when can I ask you?" asked the journalist.
Greipel responded, "The first of January, next year."
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