Stage 2 – Santos Tour Down Under 2012 – Results, Comments & Photos

Pleasant weather today at Stirling and there was a good crowd! When I saw Will Clarke it was the first lap of Stirling, he was 10 minutes in the lead and still managed to hold on and win by 1 minute and 2 seconds. He will be sore tomorrow. Also, the peloton was thirty minutes late in to Stirling… Yesterday must have hurt.

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Results

Stage 2 is complete and there has been some changes! The first 10 placings for GC, the first 3 placings for Skoda King of the Mountain and the first 3 placings for the Jayco Sprint:

(Don’t forget to read the comments and look at the photos below!)

	General Classification
Place	Name	Team	Time
1	KOHLER, M (SUI)	BMC	8:33:05
2	GREIPEL, A (GER)	LTB	0:02
3	MATTHEWS, M (AUS)	RAB	0:04
4	GERRANS, S (AUS)	GEC	0:08
5	DENNIS, R* (AUS – SA)	UNI	0:09
6	VORGANOV, E (RUS)	KAT	0:10
7	FLORENCIO CABRE, X (ESP)	KAT	0:12
8	CANTWELL, J (AUS)	SAX	st
9	BAKELANTS, J (BEL)	RNT	st
10	ROBERTS, L (AUS)	SAX	st
	Skoda King of the Mountain
1	CLARKE, W (AUS-TAS)	UNI	10 Points
2	KOHLER, M (SUI)	BMC	8 Points
3	MACHADO, T* (POR)	RNT	4 Points
	Jayco Sprint
1	CLARKE, W (AUS-TAS)	UNI	21 Points
2	KOHLER, M (SUI)	BMC	20 Points
3	MATTHEWS, M, (AUS)	RAB	18 Points

These results are taken from the official Santos Tour Down Under website. The official results for the Tour Down Under can be found here, including the Young Rider, the Aggressive Rider and the Winning Team standings.

Comments

Now today was interesting because the peloton let Will Clarke (UNI) gain a 10 minute lead, which would have been tough! However, not only was Clarke riding hard the peloton must have been riding slow. Maybe this could explain no significant changes in the GC, besides a few. The projected time for the riders to come through Stirling on their first lap was 1:00pm but they didn’t arrive until around 1:30pm… I am not to sure why this happened but there could be a few factors in play.

1. The Tour Down Under Officials got it wrong…
2. The riders are bloody dead after yesterdays slog and decided to all back off a bit. (Clarke used this as his advantage – I am not to sure where he finished yesterday, so he could be fresher then others.)
3. The TDU Officials tell us an earlier time so we aren’t scrambling along the rode and get hit by cars and bikes. Especially after yesterday, when the lady outside of Clare was hit. In fact, it was surprising to see no barricades at all in Stirling when the riders still had a fast pace!
4. If anyone else has any other insight on this let me know!

Back to Clarke. Clarke along with rider Kohler (BMC), who is GC and 2nd in both the Skoda King of the Mountain and Jayco Sprint (Just behind Clarke), broke away early during the stage and made a massive break from the peloton. Kohler took the points he wanted and went back to the bunch with 90km to go but where is Clarke? He is alone with 90km to go and he won. He took away the stage win, the Skoda Jersey and the Jayco Jersey. Not a bad day for Clarke. However, despite a good day for Clarke, Kohler is concerned about his upcoming perfomance.

“Its going to be really hard for me to defend the jersey because I think the last two days I have lost a little bit of energy.” – Kohler

The rest of the Tour Down Under waits. Will Greipel come back and take another stage win? Is Kohler going to burn up and lose GC? Can Clarke hold on to the two jerseys? We will have to wait and see!

Tomorrow Stage 3 Santos Tour Down Under Unley to Victor Harbor 134.5km 

Start: King William Road (Unley) 11:00am

Finish: Victor Harbor 2:43pm

Read more about Stage 3 here.

Photos