2018 UCI WorldTour officially kicks off

Sütterlin narrowly avoids crash by FDJ into Lyndoch's sprint as Greipel (LTS) claims stage win and leader's jersey.

It was a mostly uneventful debut for the Movistar Team in the 2018 Tour Down Under, which covered 145km on Tuesday’s stage one from Port Adelaide to Lyndoch’s finish, where Andre Greipel (LTS) took the bunch sprint win and the leader’s jersey.

Absent in the long breakaway attempt performed by Will Clarke (EFD) and Nicholas Dlamini (DDD), the riders directed by José Luis Arrieta focused on saving energy until the final sprint, where Jasha Sütterlin and Carlos Barbero tried to get in the mix.

It was the German who came in the best position of the two at the long finishing straight. However, in a slight turn left inside the final kilometer, a swerve from a Lotto-Jumbo rider forced Sütterlin to make a sudden move to his right. The change of direction made him touch with Norwegian Daniel Hoelgaard (FDJ), who crashed against the barriers as Jasha was forced to stop pedalling and lost any chance to contest the stage.

Barbero (23rd) was the first Blue finisher on day one, prior to an uphill sprint in Stirling -end of basically a circuit on stage two (148km) on Wednesday– where both the Spaniard and the German, who went himself into a solo escape over the same course in 2017, will again try to get some good results.

All pictures (c): Dario Belingheri / BettiniPhoto.net