Simon Gerrans won the Tour Down Under for the second time on Sunday, giving his newly-formed Australian GreenEDGE victory in its first-ever World Tour event. Gerrans, who won the race in 2006 and has won stages of the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana, entered the 90 kilometer (56 mile) final stage around an Adelaide street circuit as the race leader but on the same time as second-placed Spaniard Alejandro Valverde.
German sprint star Andre Greipel won the stage, claiming his third stage victory of the six-stage tour while still finishing more than 24 minutes behind Gerrans on general classification. But Gerrans managed to cover Valverde, to ensure the Movistar rider didn't pick up the time bonuses he needed to claim the overall lead, to give GreenEDGE victory on its World Tour debut.
Gerrans survived a nervous final stage to join Greipel among three two-time winners of the tour. Greipel won in 2008 and 2010 and loomed as a winning chance again this year with wins in the first and third of the tour's six stages. But his chance evaporated when he lost more than 24 minutes on the fourth and fifth stages, which featured the tour's toughest climbs.
Gerrans finished second behind Valverde on Saturday's fifth stage, the longest of the tour which ended with two stiff climbs up old Willunga Hill. He still claimed the overall lead from Valverde, and wore the tour leader's ochre jersey in Sunday's final stage, after a countback of his and the Spanish rider's aggregate placings on previous stages.
Gerrans and Valverde started and finished the final stage credited with the same overall time. But the Australian only had to avoid Valverde picking up time bonuses on two intermediate sprints and the 10 seconds available to the stage winner to ensure he won the race on countback.
His was the second countback win in the race's 14-year history and the first since 2003. Gerrans finished 27th in the final stage and Valverde 24th, both among the body of the field and both credited with the same time as Greipel.
"It's just fantastic," Gerrans said. I can't thank my teammates enough. We had a tough task today to watch Alejandro Valverde but we did a great job."Gerrans still had nervous moments on Sunday. Belgium's Jan Bakelants, who started the stage in seventh place on general classification and 19 seconds off Gerrans' overall lead, took part in a breakaway which led the peleton by more than 50 seconds at time and made him the race leader on the road.
But the three-man break, featuring France's Romain Sicard and Gerrans' teammate Cameron Meyer, was eventually claimed by the peleton on the 19th of 20 laps around the Adelaide Street circuit.
That left the peleton all together for the final lap, setting up sprint specialist Greipel for his 11th win in a Tour Down Under stage. "What can I say?" Greipel said. "The team Lotto-Belisol has just been amazing in leading me out to my third win of the week. "It looks easy but it's not. I was nowhere in the front on GC this year but I'm happy with the sprint finishes."