Tour Down Under 2014 - Stage 2
The Tour Down Under continued today with another tough stage; this time 150 kilometres from Prospect to Stirling. It was the first real uphill finish of this year's Tour, and it was expected that the race's major contenders would show their hand today. On the attack for the second day running was Will Clarke, and joining him were Campbell Flakemore and Boy Van Poppel.
A non-starter overnight was Jose Joaquin Rojas, the Movistar sprinter had unfortunately broken his scaphoid in a crash in stage one. The injury is the same one that ruined Tony Martin's Tour de France in 2012. With twenty kilometres to go, the main breakaway trio was swept up by the peloton, and so begun the counterattacks.
Philip Deignan of Sky Procycling tried his luck, as did a rider from Garmin-Sharp, but it was with sixteen kilometres to go that the peloton came together for the finale. Favourites for the day were race leader Simon Gerrans, along with strong uphill finishers such as Cadel Evans and Francesco Gavazzi.
However, it was Lampre-Merida's Diego Ulissi who took the day, with Evans going too early in the sprint, Ulissi managed to come around both the former Tour de France champion and race leader Simon Gerrans to take the stage. It surprised Ulissi himself, who did not believe he could challenge the superior form of Gerrans; "I never believed in my chances to win this stage as I believed that Simon Gerrans was by far the strongest."
Gerrans didn't sound surprised to be sprinting against a rider of the class of Ulissi on such a hard finish, and he stated that he would have to watch the Italian as the week progressed. Robert Gesink of Belkin put in an impressive ride to finish fifth, stating his intentions for the season to come.
Stage three of the Tour Down Under should be decisive, with the climb of Corkscrew Hill coming just seven kilometres out from the finish line. Last year's Corkscrew Hill stage saw an exciting finish in which Geraint Thomas of Sky escaped and managed to win the four man sprint.