July 5/09 12:41 pm - Tour of Austria: Stage 1

Posted by Editoress on 07/5/09
 

André Greipel powered to Columbia-HTC's 50th victory of the season in the Tour of Austria's stage one on Sunday. Greipel was the fastest in a bunch sprint that decided the 141-kilometre stage in Messpark Dornbirn.

The sprinter's victory takes his personal 2009 win tally to eleven while Columbia-HTC's total of victories has now risen to 50, reinforcing their position as the professional cycling team with the highest total of wins this season.

"We had to fight hard for this victory because two dangerous moves got away during the stage and both of them were difficult to pull back," Greipel said afterwards. "It was a hilly course, and we didn't get back the last two breakaways until eight kilometres to go. After that [teammates] Marcel Sieberg and Marcus Burghardt gave me the lead-out I needed and I went for it with about 200 metres to go."

Greipel's final charge for the line was affected by speed bumps in the finishing straight, but he still managed to fend off Australia's Graeme Brown for his eleventh victory of the season. "There was a headwind and we left it til quite late to start the sprint, so it ended up being close."

"But it's never easy, a lot of the guys see that I'm going well and they want to get on my back wheel. I don't get given any margin for error!"

Greipel has now won exactly half of the races he has started this season, and the German has high hopes he will be able to to beat his 2008 total of 14 victories.

"I think I can do it, although here in Austria I'm not optimistic about holding the leader's jersey tomorrow, the stage finishes with a seven kilometre climb. But there are more sprint stages later on in the race, and if we can keep the breaks from opening up too big a gap, then I'll try and win some more."

Team Columbia-HTC press release