Will Clarke. Wow! A full day up the road with only one bloke helping out, and only for a short period of time. Chapeau! A great win.
Whilst giving full credit to Clarke, this result was more due to errors in the peloton than his own ride (brilliant as it was).
One can only guess as to what was happening, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Lotto attempted to bluff GreenEdge into sharing responsibility for controlling the break, and GreenEdge calling said bluff.
This would be a good call by GreenEdge as all they would end up doing is setting themselves up to be de facto race controllers from now on.
Far from ideal for them, and in the end, their man Simon Gerrans has again positioned himself nicely to be ready to factor in the final GC standings.
Interestingly, Mark Renshaw is out of gc contention, meaning Bling Matthews and LL Sanchez are now their main cards; and Valverde has shown he is in decent form by putting his Movistar lads on the front late yesterday.
Willunga will be interesting.
Today’s stage to Victor Harbour will again be a bunch sprint similar to Stage One.
Greipel to redeem his team and himself with another win.
