Fuck. Was hoping for something with Gerro and Weening up front.

Not surprised with our result, but the WT teams needs to step up or my season will be over soon..

Fantastic report and liked the pictures

Oh yay.. small roads strike again. Sagan would have at least finished on the podium if not win it. Another goal failed. Fcking breakaways.

Also, I don't think it makes sense for March races to be raced when the January races are still going on, but that's just me.

Yay, 2nd place. Probably best season result so far. I do agree with the last part of mvh's post though.

The final stage is the traditional criterium in Adelaide. The weather is very comparable with yesterday, as it's warm and windy. Nevertheless the sprinters will try to take one final chance here.

No less than 10 riders form today's break, in a stage without KoMs or intermediate sprints. They are Suarez (COL), Elmiger (IAM), KoM leader and probably winner P. Feunard (CCC), Kadri (AG2), Florencio (EUS), Moser (CAN), Bol (BEL), Geschke (TFR), Xu (CSS) and McCarthy (TCS). They quickly establish a 3 minute lead.


Given the success of two breaks already the sprinter teams of BMC, Androni and Lotto are very reluctant to let this break gain more than that.


The wind has a visible impact today, as with 22km to go a group of almost 100 is dropped. Just 63 remain in the pack. Main victims are Chérel, Offredo, Verboven, Bennati, De la Lumière, Guardini, N. Sorensen, Evans, Markus, Dennis and Guardini. Due to some seriously hard work they do eventually rejoin.


Up ahead the break holds just under a minute with 20km to go. This makes it seem unlikely they'll make it to the line today.


With 16km to go the pack splits again though, into 4 groups. The first contains Kristoff, Izagirre, Villella, Gasparotto, Bakelants, Moreno, Greipel, Hanzen, some workers, and surprisingly Briceño.


The second group, not far behind, contains Gerrans, Vichot, Gesink, Kakhi and Bernard. Group 3 contains most other sprinters. The 4th group, 92 riders, has no real contenders in it, but some GC top-20s are in.


With 13km to go the first group catches the original break, but the second group, which has merged with the third, is coming closer now.


With 10km to go these groups merge as well, meaning we'll head into the final with 71 riders, including all top sprinters. The third group is already over 2m30 behind.


With 8km to go Morton is dropped from the pack as well. He'll once again drop in the GC.


Heading into the final 5km we see three sprint trains in front. BMC leads out Hanzen, Androni for Kawasaki and Lotto for Greipel.


Lotto may have been far behind with 4km to go, but with 3km to go they have the only train left. Hanzen and Kawasaki follow it.


Androni retries and with 2km to go Gavazzi leads out Kawasaki. Lotto meanwhile also starts. Only three sprinters left in the race for the stage win: Greipel, Kawasaki and Hanzen.


While Kristoff, Calzone and Weschenbach try to go to the front, Kawasaki has to let Gavazzi go and drop back. He's probably made too much effort today.


With 1km to go Gavazzi still leads. Henderson is almost next to him. Greipel and Hanzen follow him, while Kristoff has almost caught Hanzen's wheel. The others are far behind.


With 800m to go Greipel, Hanzen and Kristoff launch their sprints. Greipel seems to be the quickest here, by far.


While Greipel seems to cruise to victory, Henderson, Kristoff and Hanzen have their battle for 2nd.


But there was no stopping Greipel today. He wins stage 6 of the Tour Down Under.


Kristoff, Henderson, Hanzen and Gavazzi complete the top-5.


Far behind Gerrans wins the sprint for 6th.


The second big group loses over 2m30 today.


Stage Results

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	André Greipel	Lotto Belisol	1h44'27
2	Alexander Kristoff	Katusha Team	s.t.
3	Greg Henderson	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
4	Adrien Hanzen	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
5	Mattia Gavazzi	Androni Giocattoli - Venezuela	s.t.
6	Simon Gerrans	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
7	Benedikt Weschenbach	Sky Procycling	s.t.
8	Andrea Guardini	Team Europcar	s.t.
9	Rajesh Kakhi	Team Champion System	s.t.
10	Carlo Calzone	Movistar Team	s.t.
11	Ryu Kawasaki	Androni Giocattoli - Venezuela	s.t.
12	Daniel Moreno	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
13	Jan Bakelants	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	s.t.
14	Mark Renshaw	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
15	Enrico Gasparotto	Astana Pro Team	s.t.

GC

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Alexander Kristoff	Katusha Team	18h26'59
2	Simon Gerrans	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 16
3	Arthur Vichot	FDJ.fr	+ 18
4	Rajesh Kakhi	Team Champion System	+ 22
5	Daniel Moreno	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
6	Davide Villella	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 51
7	Enrico Gasparotto	Astana Pro Team	+ 56
8	Jan Bakelants	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	+ 1'06
9	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	s.t.
10	Gregory Bernard	Colombia	s.t.
11	Robert Gesink	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
12	Christian Schroder	Team Europcar	+ 1'56
13	Benedikt Weschenbach	Sky Procycling	+ 2'45
14	Jelle Vanendert	Lotto Belisol	+ 2'55
15	Adrien Hanzen	BMC Racing Team	+ 4'43

Points

Rank	Name	Team	Points
1	Alexander Kristoff	Katusha Team	49
2	Simon Gerrans	Orica - GreenEdge	48
3	André Greipel	Lotto Belisol	47
4	Benedikt Weschenbach	Sky Procycling	46
5	Adrien Hanzen	BMC Racing Team	45

KoM

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain
1	Pyroli Feunard	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	26
2	Caleb Ewan	Orica - GreenEdge	20
3	Damien Howson	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	12
4	Enrico Gasparotto	Astana Pro Team	10
5	Lachlan Morton	Drapac Cycling	10

-25

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Rajesh Kakhi	Team Champion System	18h27'21 (1)
2	Davide Villella	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 29 (2)
3	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 44 (3)
4	Gregory Bernard	Colombia	+ 44 (4)
5	Christian Schroder	Team Europcar	+ 1'34 (5)

Teams

Rank	Team	Time
1	Team Tinkoff - Saxo	55h28'33 (1)
2	FDJ.fr	+ 0 (2)
3	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 2'20 (3)
4	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	+ 3'23 (4)
5	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 3'56 (5)

Birt losing more time in 124th. What a joke.

11th, as predicted

And yeah, I did ask the march races to wait for the january races to finish, but I guess it go tlost in a pig PM. I should've underlined it or something

3rd in GC Gotta call that a huge success for FDJ at a WT event, many points please!

Hanzen with an ok race. Finding form and still working into a new team. Pretty much picking up from where he left of last year, so can't complain.

And again Krista wasn't last Thank you to Gastauer, Rossetto and Walker for being true gentlement

Two hard goals are gone, glad Feunard secured the KoM by sticking with the break to secure the KoM

Benedikt failed to deliver, but thats what you get when you have an unbalanced rider.

Also, great speed and nice overall reports.

How I mock your top 12 goal now

Nice job from Garmin getting their hard goal by winning Kuurne!

TDU was a total mess, never ever i send Cav and Benedikt together

Overall a disappointing race for us. The hills didnt get hard enough I suppose. Also Verboven lookikg in bad form. Hopefully he will soon find his raacing legs properly.

Good reports though.

Meh.. they should've done more to keep the 2nd group off. Could have gotten my goal then.

Bad sprinting from Bennati on this stage.

Boohoo, Sky only got one stage win..


If the season would finish today, 7 CT teams would promote

Can't wait for the post-TDU rankings update we were promised

Didn't I say it would be after TDU and San Luis finish?

@TDU S5 - decent enough Vanendert, didn't expect you to win
@TDU S6 - Greipel
@KBK - F*ck you Pedersen!
---
@Strade - OMYFUCKINGOD MATHIAS !!!

I hoped that with the completiong of KBK, Strade and Qatar you'd have something to give us today

A short one then

Riders: Nothing out of the ordinary, the 3 guys who won a stage race on top. Sky with 4 names in the top 10.





Teams: Sky leading, FDJ a surprising second. Movistar, Belkin, BMC and Astana, who were supposed to challenge Sky, all missed their start. As said on the previous page, 7 CT teams on promotion positions. Lots of teams affected by punishment, the effects of it will fade after more races.