The People's Choice Classic, the 51 kilometer long criterium announcing the Tour Down Under 2013 took place in the streets of Adelaide in South-Australia tonight, on a circuit of only 1.7 kilometers.

For the third time since its creation, André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) took the win, this time ahead of Matthew Goss (Orica-GreenEDGE).

The summary of the People's Choice Classic 2013

Almost as usual in this criterium, it all started with a breakaway which brought some spectacle in the race before being taken back by the peloton in preparation of the sprint which would end it all up.

The day's breakaway was literally formed right from the start, as soon as the flag dropped the German Jens Voigt (Radioshack-Leopard-Trek) - the oldest rider in the peloton - and the Australian Zakkary Dempster (UniSA) who went off for a crazy adventure. Their gap went up to values over one minute when the chase finally got organised behind them with the Lotto-Belisol and Argos-Shimano teams leading the peloton.

In the breakaway, the young Dempster took all primes at the 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th crossing of the finish line. He didn't leave any money over for the rider of the Radioshack team.

At 9 laps from the finish, the leading duo finally got caught back by the peloton and it all went off rather quick from there. In the forelast lap, the Lotto-Belisol team took its position at the head of the peloton and the speed went up really high when entering the last lap.

At the back of the sprint train we of course found the house sprinter, André Greipel, but in his wheel was a strategically well positioned Matthew Goss (Orica-GreenEDGE) who also already won this criterium in the past.

The German rider didn't allow his Australian competitor to surprise him however because when he went off with all his forces for victroy, Matthew Goss could only follow and was unable to beat Greipel on the line!



This means that, like last year and in 2008, the rider nicknamed « the gorilla » starts off his season in this way and that's of course good news concerning the shape of the Lotto-Belisol rider in the Tour Down Under 2013 because this first race of the UCI WorldTour offers many possibilities for all the sprinters who came over to the Australian continent.

>> See the Santos Tour Down Under 2013 race route

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour Down Under | Tour Down Under 2013

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