Recap: Round up of the Santos Tour Down Under 2012
Part -1
The 2012 season started off with Santos Tour Down as the UCI inaugural event. The 14th edition of the six-day race was commenced in Adelaide Australia from January 17-22, 2012.
Simon Gerrans of the UCI debutant side, Team GreenEdge claimed the first victory for the team at the top level of the sport and became part of the history.
All the UCI World Tour Professional teams have automatically qualified for the event which fills the first 18 spots with UniSA-Australia participated as the 19th team of the event.
The total number of 19 teams to ride the first World Tour race of the 2012 season are, Team Ag2r-La Mondiale, Team Astana, BMC Racing Team, Team Euskaltel-Euskadi, Team FDJ-BigMat, Team Garmin-Barracuda and Team GreedEdge.
Team Lampre-ISD, Team Liquigas-Cannondale, Team Lotto-Belisol, Team Movistar, Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Team Rabobank will also ride the event.
Team RadioShack-Nissan-Trek, Team Katusha, Team Saxo Bank, Team Sky, Team Vacansoleil-DCM and Team UniSA-Australia participated at the 14th edition of the Australian race.
German cyclist Andre Greipel claimed the opening 149.3 kilometre stage of the race between Prospect and Clare. He covered the distance in a fastest time of 4 hours, 33 minutes and 40 seconds.
Alessandro Petacchi, Yauheni Hutarovich, Fabio Sabatini and Daniele Bennati finished at the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth positions in the respective order.
Will Clarke of Team UniSA-Australia won the stage 2 of the race in a competitive time of 3 hours, 58 minutes and 35 seconds. His outstanding performance restricted Michael Matthews of Team Rabobank at the second position.
Martin Kohler finished the 148 kilometre stage 2 at the 39th position and jumped at the top of the stage 2 classifications.
Andre Greipel of Team Lotto-Belisol showed his brilliance yet again during the third stage of the race and overcame Yauheni Hutarovich and Edvald Boasson Hagen after a photo finish.
"It was our intention to keep the breakaway in sight with a good gap. The crosswinds have made the race faster. The 1km to go mark was the most important point of today's stage”. ," Greipel noted
I told my team-mates ‘I need to be on 5th or 6th position at that point'. They did a great job to put me there and I finished it off. I'm happy to get back into the lead but the time bonus I got again isn't important in my mind", he concluded.
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