ADELAIDE, Australia – Tasmanian Matthew Goss confirmed
his overall victory pretensions by winning the opening stage of the Tour Down
Under Tuesday ahead of sprint rival and reigning champion Andre Greipel.

Germany’s Greipel, who has won the overall title twice, finished in second
place for his new team Omega-Pharma with Australian Robbie McEwen of
RadioShack in third.

Held over 138 kilometres (85 miles) from Mawson Lakes to Angaston in the
hilly wine region outside Adelaide, the first stage proper was marked by an
early five-man breakaway.

They were reeled in with less than 10 km remaining, guaranteeing a bunch
sprint on a slightly uphill home straight where Goss jumped out from behind
the wheel of lead-out man Mark Renshaw to surge to a convincing victory.

It was Goss’s second win of the race, the Australian having also won the
pre-race criterium over 51 km on Sunday which does not count towards the race
standings.

Lance Armstrong, the winner of seven Tour de France yellow jerseys, will
bring the curtain down on his career when the race finishes in Adelaide on
Sunday.

The American finished in the same time as most of the field but kept safely
out of danger as the fast men of the peloton wound up their final dash for the
line.

After some textbook lead-out work by his sprint “train”, Goss finished off
the job in style — and was quick to share the glory with fellow Aussie
Renshaw.

“With the work that Renshaw did today it was hard not to win,” said the
24-year-old Goss, who has come into this event on form having won the Bay
Crits series and finished second at the national championships road race.

“It’s an ideal start, but there’s still five stages left in the race.”

Greipel quit the HTC-Highroad team last year in a bid to relaunch a career
that has been affected by the dominance of former teammate Mark Cavendish, who
was deservedly the team’s marquee sprinter.

The German admitted his opening sprint of the season did not quite go as
planned.

“With around 400 metres to go I got a little bit boxed in, so I had to
start my sprint early,” he said.

“Then Gossy came up” beside him “and so I had to relaunch my sprint again.”

He added: “Goss is the strongest guy here so far. But this was a good
warm-up and finishing second is a good confidence boost for me and the team.”

In Sunday’s criterium McEwen impressed with a third place finish having had
to relaunch his sprint from scratch after being caught behind the leaders
following a late crash.

Despite being caught out by several sprint “trains” Tuesday, the
Queenslander showed he should be one to be reckoned with this week.

South African teammate Robbie Hunter helped McEwen plug a gap during the
hectic finale, but when it came to the final effort the Aussie had little left
to give.

“I lost position a little bit but coming into the last kilometre Robbie
Hunter did a tremendous job to bring me back to the front. We must have passed
50 guys to come back onto third wheel,” said McEwen.

“But when you come from that far you eventually get in position but you’re
legless, and I actually didn’t have much left in the sprint at all.”

Article: AFP
Photo: Corvos