It was quite sure that on the circuit in the centre of Adelaide the last Tour Down Under 2012 stage would finish in a sprint. The suspense however was for the final victory because, as you might remember, after yesterday's stage the numbers one and two of the general classification had exactly the same time!

The biggest sprint expert present in SOuth Australia, André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol), sprinted to victory in this 6th and last stage while Simon Gerrans (GreenEDGE) kept his precious leader's jersey in the general classification ...

The summary of the stage 6/ Adelaide City Council Street Circuit

The last stage of the Tour Down Under always takes place in the same, a bit special, form, with 20 laps on a 4.5 kilometer long circuit in the centre of Adelaide, the Champs-Elysées of Adelaide according to the director of the race.

The Tour Down Under 2012 ended as it started, with very high temperatures. In Adelaide it was no less than 36 degrees today, only the wind was less present ...

After a first attack by Luke Durbridge (GreenEDGE), who got company from 10 other riders, the real first leading group was formed after an attack by Jack Bauer (Garmin-Barracuda) who was first joined by Thomas de Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team, photo) (who tried to get some additional points for the King of the Mountains classification jersey but who also showed in this way that he's been in really good shape this week) and than also by Leigh Howard (GreenEDGE) and finally by a group of 13 riders who were chasing behind them. However, in the 8th lap the peloton came back on them, mainly due to the hard work of the Rabobank team.

Davide Cimolai (Lampre-ISD) and Luke Durbridge however persisted and took the first places in the intermediate sprint intermédiaire in this order, ahead of Jack Bauer. Indeed, they were joined by Jack Bauer but also by Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team), Jens Voigt (Radioshack-Nissan) and Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep).
In the 10th lap those riders thus shared the points for the King of the Mountains classification in the order Greg van Avermaet, Davide Cimolai and Luke Durbridge. This rang the end of the battle for the King of the Mountains leader's jersey because, even though there were still some points to be taken in the 15th lap, Rohan Dennis (UniSA-Australia) became unbeatable at that point.

Just after this "climb", the peloton again gets back together and it's Jan Bakelants' (Radioshack-Nissan) turn to attack. He thus took the points in the second intermediate sprint, ahead of Cameron Meyer, chasing behind him, and again Jack Bauer. Cameron Meyer joined the Belgian rider at the head of the race and than it was Romain Sicard's (Euskaltel-Euskadi) turn to start chasing them. And he succeeded in his mission because the French rider of the Basque team joined the leading duo only minutes later.
In the 15th lap Cameron Meyer took the points, which had become useless, for the King of the Mountains classification, ahead of Sicard and Bakelants.
Behind them, the GreenEDGE team controlled the race so the gap wouldn't go up too much to be absorbable before the end of the stage. When there were still three laps to go, the leading group however still has a quite stable 45 seconds lead on the peloton where the other sprinters teams joined GreenEDGE to get ready for a bunch sprint. Cameron Meyer of course let the two other riders of the leading group do the work because he also wanted to prevent Simon Gerrans from losing his jersey (if the gap would remain too important Jan Bakelants could have won the Asutralian race since he was only 19 seconds behind the Australian rider before the stage and he took 3 bonus seconds in the second sprint).

In the forelast lap, Cameron Meyer however decides to attack, either to go for stage victory being sure enough that the peloton would take back Bakelants or to create some chaos in the leading group ... Anyway, it worked out because while he still had a 15 seconds lead on the peloton at the start of the last lap, he decided at a few kilometers from the finish to let the peloton get back on him and it was thus all ready for a bunch sprint.

In this bunch sprint it was again André Greipel who showed to be the strongest, by finishing ahead of Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) and Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD). Since Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) didn't get a chance to take any additional time, he thus automatically stayed at the same time as Simon Gerrans (GreenEDGE).

The Australian rider thus took his second overall victory in the Tour Down Under (after 2006) but he also signed for the first big victory of the new Australian UCI ProTeam GreenEDGE.

An interesting fact about this 2012 edition is that with an average speed of 38.7 km/h it was the slowest edition of the Tour Down Under.

The final classifications of the Tour Down Under 2012

The stage classification for 6/ Adelaide City Council Street Circuit

Here's the top 10 of this final stage of the Tour Down Under 2012:

1/ André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) - 1h56'48"
2/ Mark Renshaw (Rabobank)
3/ Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD)
4/ Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ BigMat)
5/ Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar)
6/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling)
7/ Romain Feillu (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team)
8/ Jonathan Cantwell (Saxo Bank)
9/ Fabio Sabatini (Liquigas-Cannondale)
10/ Manuel Belletti (AG2R La Mondiale)

General classification

The final general classification doesn't change compared to yesterday. Here's the top 5:

1/ Simon Gerrans (GreenEDGE) - 20h46'12"
2/ Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team)
3/ Tiago Machado (Radioshack-Nissan) - +0'08"
4/ Michael Rogers (Sky Procyling) - +0'14"
5/ Rohan Dennis (UniSA-Australia)

Sprinters classification

For the sprinters there were some changes in this final stage but Eddy Boss was unbeatable at the first place of this classification:

1/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling) - 56 points
2/ André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) - 50 points
3/ Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ BigMat) - 39 points
4/ Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) - 33 points
5/ Michael Matthews (Rabobank) - 32 points

King of the Mountains classification

For the climbers there haven't been any changes and the young Rohan Dennis thus wins this classification despite the big efforts of Thomas de Gendt:

1/ Rohan Dennis (UniSA-Australia) - 29 points
2/ Thomas de Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - 24 points
3/ Simon Gerrans (GreenEDGE) - 24 points
4/ Tiago Machado (Radioshack-Nissan) - 18 points
5/ Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) - 16 points

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour Down Under | Tour Down Under 2012

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