Wednesday 22 January 2014 at 09h22
The second stage of the Tour Down Under 2014 visited the hilly zone around Adelaide. The stage unfolded in a quite classical way again, with a 3 rider breakaway, reduced to 2 at the end and taken baken at about twenty kilometers from the finish. The slightly uphill finish didn't prevent a bunch sprint to end off the stage: 97 riders arrived in the same tile. The surprise maybe came from the rider who won the stage, the Italian sprinter Diego Ulissi of the Lampre-Merida team.
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The summary of the 2nd stage of the Tour Down Under 2014: Prospect > Stirling
This second stage of the first UCI WorldTour race in 2014 was 150 kilometers long between Prospect and Stirling, with two climbs counting for the King of the Mountains classification, Golden Grove and Checker Hill, and a quite hilly profile right from the kilometer 0 in Gepps Cross.During the 10 first kilometers there were several attacks and Will Clarke (Drapac Professional Cycling) was again the most insisting rider (just like yesterda), and he ended up in today's breakaway, this time with Campbell Flakemore (UniSA) and Boy van Poppel (Trek Factory Racing). This leading trio creates a gap of up to 2'50" just before the first intermediate sprint on One Tree Hill. Flakemore and Clarke didn't represent a threat for Simon Gerrans' leader's jersey, being at over 8 minutes in the general classification, but Boy van Poppel being at 2'32", the peloton never wanted to leave them a bigger gap.
In the climb of Golden Grove, the leading trio didn't lose any time but rapidly afterwards the gap dropped back to 1'45", even though while approaching Checker Hill they again saw their gap going up above 2 minutes and this climb didn't prevent them from keeping this gap either. At 50 kilometers from the finish the peloton however came a bit closer again and at 35 kilometers th gap went under one minute and Flakemore was rapidly taken back by the peloton.
Van Poppel and Clarke insisted but at the start of the last lap on the circuit around the finish line, at about twenty kilometers from the finish, the adventure came to an end for them as well. Several attacks followed but in the end the peloton stayed together until the last uphill part towards the finish line. Richie Porte (Team Sky) attacks at one kilometer from the line and takes with him riders like Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE), yesterday's winner, and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team). In the end none of these 3 riders won the stage though because Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) managed to beat everyone else in the sprint and thus became the second stage winner of this Tour Down Under 2014.
The result of the 2nd stage of the Tour Down Under 2014
Here's the top 10 of this stage:1/ Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) - 3h52'14"
2/ Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE)
3/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team)
4/ Francesco Gavazzi (Astana)
5/ Robert Gesink (Belkin Pro Cycling Team)
6/ Richie Porte (Team Sky)
7/ Ben Hermans (BMC Racing Team)
8/ Fabio Felline (Trek Factory Racing)
9/ Javier Moreno (Movistar Team)
10/ Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE)
Simon Gerrans thus keeps the lead in the general classification, 7 seconds ahead of Diego Ulissi and 11 of André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol).
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The video of the 2nd stage of the Tour Down Under 2014
Hereunder you can find the video summary of this second stage of the Tour Down Under 2014:Vond u dit artikel interessant? Laat het uw vrienden op Facebook weten door op de buttons hieronder te klikken!
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this publication is published in: Tour Down Under | Tour Down Under 2014
by Dany45 over
Superbe article, petite remarque cependant; Ulissi n'est pas particulierement un sprinteur. je le suis regulierement depuis 2 ans car il est promis a un bel avenir, mais quand on fait 21eme du Giro, 9eme de la fleche Wallone ou 7eme de Paris-Nice, on n'est pas vraiment catalogue dans cette categorie.
Dans tous les cas, un grimpeur a surveiller dans les prochaines annees, qui pourrait nous faire un top 10 d'un grand tour tres prochainement.
@Yoshi45, merci pour cette réaction ! J'avoue que ce matin en écrivant l'introduction de l'article, j'ai hésité sur la qualification "sprinteur" mais comme il a quand même quelques victoires réalisées au sprint j'ai quand même mis cela, tout en parlant bien de la surprise puisque ce n'est en effet pas le premier "sprinteur" qu'on attend en cas d'une arrivée au sprint alors que le peloton du Tour Down Under, de par sa composition d'étapes qui se prêtent à une arrivée au sprint, contient de nombreux sprinteurs de renom !