Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong says Andre Greipel is the man to beat in the Tour Down Under after the German sprinter won yesterday’s second stage for the US-based Team Columbia HTC.
Greipel, the 2008 champion, has won the first two stages of the six-stage race — lifting to seven his tally of Tour Down Under stage wins — to take a 14-second lead over New Zealander Greg Henderson and Gert Steegmans of Armstrong’s Team Radioshack.
Armstrong came in 48th in yesterday’s stage, credited with the same time as Greipel, and is placed 39th overall after two stages, 20 seconds behind Greipel and one place behind Cadel Evans, the reigning world road racing champion.
Armstrong’s former teammate, US road racing champion George Hincapie is 23rd overall, and 2006 Tour de France champion Oscar Pereiro is 75th, 1 minute and 15 seconds behind the race leader.
Armstrong raced prominently in a stage made difficult by heat, which touched 30°C and by a series of steep climbs, then a bunched finish.
“It was not so bad, not as bad as last year,” said Armstrong who is contesting the tour for the second time. “It’s a shock for almost all of us who haven’t been racing. Just the intensity. The heat came on today and you just get those little steep walls so all in all not bad.”
Wednesday’s stage between Gawler and Hahndorf, on the outskirts of South Australia state capital Adelaide, unfolded as a replica of Tuesday’s first stage.
A group comprising young Australian David Kemp, Frenchman Michael Delage and Belgium’s Olivier Kaisen slipped away early in the stage and led by an eventual margin of 11.5 minutes.
Greipel’s Columbia teammates were able to control the peleton as the breakaway group slowly came back to the bunch and Greipel worked into a position from which he could drive past his rivals in a tight sprint.
“I am surprised how tired I am today,” Greipel said. “Even with the break we were happy to let it go out to eight minutes or more because we could claw back the time. In the end it was like the finish [in Hahndorf] two years ago I waited a long time again before starting my sprint and we won again.”
Greipel’s win was celebrated in Hahndorf, a village of tightly packed stone cottages established by German immigrants whose older residents still converse in German.
“It’s nice to win in a German town,” Greipel said.
Armstrong said Greipel was “definitely the man to beat” after his dominance of the first two stages, which were ideally suited to sprinters.
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