The last stage of the Santos Tour Down Under 2015 took place on a 4.5 kilometers long circuit in the center of Adelaide and the riders had to do it 20 times. A bunch sprint was expected at the finish but a small group finally battled for the sprint due to a crash in the forelast lap. Wouter Wippert (Drapac Professional Cycling) crossed the finish line first, ahead of Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling), and he almost seemed to be the one who was most surprised!

Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) didn't see his first place in the general classification being threatened by Richie Porte (Team Sky) and thus won the first UCI WorldTour race of the 2015 season.

The summary of the 6th stage of the Tour Down Under 2015: Adelaide > Adelaide - 90 km

The 4.5 kilometers long circuit in the streets of Adelaide was a bit different from what it used to be since the riders did a longer stretch on King William Street and turned around at Victoria Square. As a consequence, the straight line of the circuit towards the finish line was longer than usual and in this straight line we could read a painting on the road saying "Thank you Cadel, you've done Australia proud, honouring Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) who will end his career at the occasion of the first edition of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, the Santos Tour Down Under 2015 thus being his last UCI WorldTour race.

The first real breakaway of the day was formed in the second lap of the circuit, by Nathan Haas (Cannondale-Garmin), Calvin Watson (Trek Factory Racing), Manuele Boaro (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale) who were joined in the next lap by Greg Henderson (Lotto-Soudal) and a bit later also by Giampaolo Caruso (Team Katusha). Their gap never went above 30 seconds however and just before the first intermediate sprint at the 8th crossing of the finish line, these breakaway riders were taken back by the peloton.
This could have been the occasion for Richie Porte (Team Sky) to try to get the bonus seconds he needed to climb up to the first place on the podium of the Australian race but the Australian rider of the British team apparently didn't set that goal. The Orica-GreenEDGE team, which did almost all the work to get back on the breakaway, reached its goal however and took the points in the sprint for Daryl Impey.

In the 9th lap of the circuit, a new 5 rider strong breakaway was formed with Peter Kennaugh (Team Sky), Lars Bak (Lotto-Soudal), Alex Howes (Cannondale-Garmin), again Manuele Boaro and his team mate Christopher Juul Jensen (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Lars Boom (Astana). The last mentioned rider took the points for the King of the Mountains classification, at the 10th crossing of Montefiore Hill.

Despite the hard work of the Giant-Alpecin and Drapac teams trying to make sure the stage would finish in a sprint, these 5 breakaway riders create a bigger gap than the previous breakaway since in the 12th lap it reaches 1'15". While Lars Bak won the intermediate sprint at the 12th crossing of the finish line, Lars Boom again took the points for the KOM classification at the 15th crossing of Montefiore Hill. The gap then goes down every lap and when they start the 19th lap, the breakaway is taken back, except for Manuele Boaro who is taken back a bit further.

Everything thus seems to be set for the usual bunch sprint with the whole peloton, including overall favourite Marcel Kittel (Team Giant-Alpecin), but a crash in this forelast lap prevented the German rider and several others to take part in the sprint.

In the reduced group which goes on to the finish, we see Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling) try to get his first UCI WorldTour victory for the IAM Cycling team which recently joined the selection of UCI WorldTeams but on the left of the road, Wouter Wippert (Drapac Professional Cycling) manages to find a gap through which the Dutch sprinter can jump to the finish and thus win the last stage of the Santos Tour Down Under 2015.

The video summary of the 6th stage of the Tour Down Under 2015

The final classifications of the Tour Down Under 2015

CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS ADVERTISEMENT The classification of the 6th stage of the Tour Down Under 2015: Adelaide > Adelaide Here's the top 10 of this 6th and last stage of the Santos Tour Down Under 2015: 1/ Wouter Wippert (Drapac Professional Cycling) - 1h56'09" 2/ Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling) 3/ Boris Vallée (Lotto-Soudal) 4/ Pavel Brutt (Tinkoff-Saxo) 5/ Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE) 6/ Niccolo Bonifazio (Lampre-Merida) 7/ Steele von Hoff (UniSA Australia) 8/ Ruslan Tleubayev (Astana Pro Team) 9/ Rudiger Selig (Team Katusha) 10/ Sébastien Chavanel (FDJ) The final general classification of the Tour Down Under 2015 Even though Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) was continuously observing Richie Porte (Team Sky) in today's stage, Porte never really tried to get the few seconds he needed to win this Santos Tour Down Under 2015 in the first intermediate sprint or at the finish (for the second intermediate sprint the bonus seconds were already taken by the breakaway riders) and Dennis thus won his first Tour Down Under! 1/ Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) - 19h15'18" 2/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - +0'02" 3/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +0'20" 4/ Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) - +0'22" 5/ Ruben Fernandez (Movistar Team) - +0'24"

Post by Cycling, Tour Down Under.

Post by Cycling, Tour Down Under.

The other classifications of the Tour Down Under 2015

Here's the top 3 of the other classifications of this Santos Tour Down Under 2015:

• Points classification: Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE), 55 points, ahead of Niccolo Bonifazio (Lampre-Merida) with 39 points and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) with 37 points
• King of the Mountains classification: Jack Bobridge (UniSA Australia) was sure to keep his jersey in this classification which he won with 36 points, ahead of Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) with 34 points and Richie Porte (Team Sky) with 22 points
• Best young rider classification: at 25 years old, Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) won the race and thus also the young riders classification, in 19h15'18", ahead of Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) who finished at 22 seconds and Ruben Fernandez (Movistar Team) at 24 seconds
• Teams classification: Movistar Team was the best team (based on the cumulative time of the 3 best placed riders of each team) in 57h48'48", ahead of BMC Racing Team who had the winner and the number 3 of the race, at 1'21" and Lotto-Soudal at 4'24"

The next UCI WorldTour race will now be Paris-Nice 2015 which will start on 8 March.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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