Thursday 19 January 2012 at 08h29

The third stage of the Tour Down Under 2012 between Unley and Victor Harbor ended in a sprint in the coast city and in this sprint, André Greipel took yet another stage victory. He also seized the occasion to get back the ochre leader's jersey of the general classification.

The summary of the stage 3/ Unley > Victor Harbor

As usual since the start of this Tour Down Under, immediately after the start some riders decided to go for some adventure and got in a breakaway. This time it was the turn for Eduard Vorganov (Katusha Team), Jan Bakelants (Radioshack-Nissan-Trek) and Thomas de Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) and a few kilometers further, these 3 leading riders were joined by Matt Brammeier (Omega Pharma-QuickStep).

At about one hundred kilometers from the finish, their gap reaches its maximum value at 5'25" and a few kilometers further the leading group gets on top of Sellicks Hill where Thomas de Gendt sprint to the points of the King of the Mountains classification (see photo; click on it to open it; photo Tim Ransome), ahead of Brammeier and Bakelants. By doing so, the Belgian rider also took the lead in the King of the Mountains classification.

In the first intermediate sprint at about 70 kilometers from the finish, it was again Thomas de Gendt who took the points, this time ahead of Bakelants and Vorganov. At that time their gap was back down to around 1'50". At the second intermediate sprint the same group of riders is still ahead however and the result of this sprint is exactly the same as the first one.

At 40 kilometers from the finish, the peloton finally reaches its goal to get back on this leading group because it was of course impossible to again have a breakaway go on until the finish like yesterday and a bunch sprint in Victor Harbor was thus being prepared. Despite several tentatives for new breakaways, the peloton stayed together until the finish.

In the bunch sprint there was once again nothing which could stop the gorilla, the surname for the German rider André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol). Indeed, with half a bike lentgh, he finished ahead of Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ BigMat), followed a bit further by Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling).

The classifications of the Tour Down Under after the 3rd stage

The top 10 of the stage classification: 3/ Unley > Victor Harbor

Here's the top 10 of this stage:

1/ André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) - 3h21'55"
2/ Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ BigMat)
3/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling)
4/ Mark Renshaw (Rabobank)
5/ Robbie McEwen (GreenEDGE)
6/ Jacopo Guarnieri (Astana)
7/ Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Barracuda)
8/ Daniele Bennati (RadioShack-Nissan)
9/ Manuele Belletti (AG2R La Mondiale)
10/ Chris Sutton (Sky Procycling)

The general classification

In the general classification, the game of bonus seconds gave yet another few changes. Here's the current top 5:

1/ André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) - 11h54'52"
2/ Martin Kohler (BMC Racing Team) - +0'08"
3/ Michael Matthews (Rabobank) - +0'12"
4/ Thomas de Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - +0'14"
5/ Simon Gerrans (GreenEDGE) - +0'16"

King of the Mountain classification

For the climbers, the classification has changed again as well with the points Thomas de Gendt took today and which allowed him to get ahead of the previous leader, Will Clarke:

1/ Thomas de Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - 12 points
2/ Will Clarke (UniSA-Australia) - 10 points
3/ Martin Kohler (BMC Racing Team) - 8 points
4/ Matt Brammeier (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - 6 points
5/ Jan Bakelants (RadioShack-Nissan) - 4 points

Sprinters classification

In the sprinters classification we now really start to see the sprinters leading:

1/ André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) - 30 points
2/ Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ BigMat) - 27 points
3/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling) - 24 points
4/ Will Clarke (UniSA-Australia) - 21 points
5/ Martin Kohler (BMC Racing Team) - 20 points

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour Down Under | Tour Down Under 2012

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