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Great day for GreenEDGE as Gerrans wins Tour stage

Roar Guru
1st July, 2013
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Orica-GreenEDGE have won their first stage of the Tour de France, with Simon Gerrans lunging to the line enough to edge out fast-finishing Slovakian Peter Sagan to cross first in the 145.5km stage from Ajaccio to Calvi.

Spaniard Jose Joaquim Rojas of Movistar was third.

Sagan is a quality sprinter and was a hot favourite to take the stage if his team could get him into a good position approaching the line, which they did, but Orica-GreenEDGE showed that they might have a significant part to play in this year’s race.

The Slovakian’s second place was enough to retain the sprinter’s green jersey, while Michal Kwiatowski of Omega Pharma-Quick Step keeps the white as the best young rider.

Jan Balkelants of Radioshack Leopard finished in 19th place and retains the yellow jersey.

Gerrans is not known as a bunch sprinter, but the Australian pulled off a great move after being lead into position by teammate Daryl Impey with 20 metres to go and took the honours on what was the last stage on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

The win is Gerrans’ second at the Tour de France, having won a stage in 2008, but will surely have greater significance as the first by any rider from an Australian team.

It was a great day for Orica-GreenEDGE, who had made no secret of their desire for stage wins since joining the Tour in 2012.

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But GreenEDGE had begun this year’s edition in ignominy after their team bus became stuck under the gantry at the finish line on Stage 1, causing chaos.

All that was forgotten, however, with the focus now on the team itself rather than their choice of transportation.

Earlier, Gerrans’ teammate and compatriot Simon Clarke was part of a five-man breakaway that stayed ahead of the peloton for 132km before it was eventually reeled in approaching the summit of the Col de Marsolino, the last climb before the descent to the finish in Calvi.

Clarke, the last man out front as the other riders in the breakaway dropped away, fell agonisingly short of his goal to reach the summit and gain the points that would have given him the polka-dot jersey as leader in the King of the Mountains.

With 1km to go until to the summit, Europcar riders Davide Malacarne and Pierre Rolland caught and rode past him, allowing Rolland to head the summit first and retain the lead in that classification.

Clarke will gain some consolation from having been awarded the prize for the stage’s most combative rider.

As the descent began, riders jostled for position and attacked to try and gain precious seconds that would help them steal a stage win.

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Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Mikel Nieve (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Lars Peter Nordhaug (Belkin Pro Cycling) all made moves, but were reeled in by the peloton with 3.5km to the finish and the sprinters moved to the front to do their work.

All the major teams were present, but Orica-GreenEDGE won the day.

Stage 5 sees the Tour head to the mainland for the first time, with the 25km team time trial in Nice.

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