Spain’s Juan Jose Lobato del Valle swooped in the last 50m to win the second stage of the Tour Down Under in the South Australian town of Stirling yesterday.
Lobato del Valle came from 10th place in the closing stages to fly past South African Daryl Impey (Orica GreenEdge) at the end of the long uphill finish and win in 3 hours, 42 minutes, 24 seconds.
His Movistar teammate Gorka Izaguirre Insausti was third, just ahead of Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin).
“It was a very difficult finish for me, but I managed to come through towards the end, and it’s a good win for the team,” Lobato del Valle said. “We always come to this race with a great team, we like to ride well here and it’s important for us to do well in the Tour Down Under.”
Australia’s Jack Bobridge rode in with the peloton to maintain his hold on the ochre leader’s jersey after a day’s racing in perfect conditions on the testing course around the Adelaide Hills.
From the inner-city Adelaide start, the race stayed together until Cameron Meyer (Orica GreenEDGE) and Thomas de Gendt (Lotto Soudal) broke clear after 18km. They were soon joined by Campbell Flakemore (BMC), with the trio opening a lead of almost four minutes by the 62km mark.
However, unlike on Tuesday when the peloton mistimed the chase and let the breakaway stay clear until the finish, this time the main teams were taking no chances.
The chase was organized by IAM and Team Sky, and steadily reeled in the leaders, catching them at the end of the second of two 20km laps around the countryside surrounding Stirling.
Calvin Watson (Trek Factory Racing) and Danilo Wyss (BMC) broke clear at the start of the last lap and stayed away for 10km, but they were caught at the bottom of the long uphill finishing stretch into Stirling.
IAM tried to set the race up for sprinter Heinrich Hessler, but most of the running was taken up by Garmin-Cannondale for Nathan Haas.
With an average speed of 43.5kph over the last climb into Stirling, the peloton was soon broken apart, but main general classification contenders Cadel Evans and Richie Porte managed to hang on.
Haas launched his bid for glory 400m out, but he was caught by Impey, who looked certain to take the win until Lobato del Valle’s late surge.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier