Lampre-Merida made a mark in the top part of the race ranking of the 1st stage of Tour Down Under.
The final part of the stage, with a hill at 10 km to go and a rising final kilometer, proved to be demanding.
Lampre-Merida’s cyclists supported team captain Diego Ulissi in a good way, helping him to avoid a split in the peloton that was caused by a crash.
Ulissi exploited the work by Wackerman and Valls in the last kilometer in order to be in the head position fighting in the final sprint: he was preceded by the winner Gerrans, by Greipel (2nd) and by Van Hoff (3rd).
Thanks to the 4th place by Ulissi and the 8th position by Valls, Lampre-Merida now leads the overall team classification.
“(The) 2013 season ended in a perfect way for me, that’s why I strongly wanted to start the year performing a good race,” Ulissi explained. “I think today’s stage gave me and the team interesting feedbacks, it was not simple to fight against very competitive riders such Gerrans and Greipel. This is a first good step also for what concerns the overall classification of the race.”
Ron Callahan is the chief cook and bottlewasher at Bike World News, doing everything from website design to bike reviews.