“I am happy about today," explained Bennati. At this point I don’t have 100% condition and I’ve been a little bit sick, but I have good sensations and tomorrow I will try for the sprint victory.  Stage 2 has an uphill sprint and that is much better for me.  Today the last 300 meters were downhill and that’s just not perfect for my type of sprint.  It was a fast sprint today and it was the first sprint of the season so many of the guys were fresh but we were going right into a head wind.  I have to say it was a good job from my teammates, especially Jesse and Hayden.” 

Temperatures soared to 39ºC/103ºF and wind pelted the riders through most of the 149km/93mi stage from Prospect to Clare, but RADIOSHACK NISSAN TREK riders stayed safely in the peloton until time to work for Bennati in the closing kilometers.  “I’m happy,” said Team Director José Azevedo.  “The team did good work all day and in the final they helped Daniele in the sprint.  In the end it wasn’t a good sprint for him with 300 meters downhill and for some other guys this was a sprint more suited to them.  But I’m happy for the work the team did and for the spirit we see in the team right now.  Tomorrow is an uphill finish which is more his type of finish.  He’s already shown us that he has good legs and is in good condition.  Tomorrow there is a hard circuit in the final.  It’s a good finish for him and we’re going to try again with Bennati.”  A crash near the finish saw more than a dozen riders hit the deck, but RADIOSHACK NISSAN TREK riders stayed upright and out of harm.  “We were lucky today,” explained Azevedo.  “There was a big crash in the last kilometers but none of our guys were hurt.  Often that isn’t the case when so many are involved, so today we were lucky.  Today we had luck on our side.”

 “As far as I saw they went too far right on that side of the road,” explained team rider Jens Voigt.  “They ran off the smooth surface of the road and got caught in the loose gravel or they hit a spectator.  Maybe someone just hit a spectator and caused the chain reaction in the peloton with another ten or twelve riders going down.  It was a fast crash and looked pretty painful too.  Nobody from our team was hurt.  We delivered Bennati just in front of that and we were more on the left side so we were safe.  I mean it was stressful and it was close, but we were safe.”

The chaotic sprint was won by Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol Team) in a photo finish with Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD).  A two-time winner of the general classification in 2008 and 2010, Greipel took the first leader’s jersey in this year’s race.