“I am happy,” said third-place finisher Machado.  “This is the first race of the year and I’m on the podium.  It’s my biggest result so far.  I want to again say thanks to the team for the support this entire week .  Without them, for sure I would not have this result.  I hope I’m not at the top of my form yet because I have other races that I want to be even better in, so I will keep working in that direction.”

Another scorching day of racing was on hand for the peloton of 131 in the final day of the 14th Santos Tour Down Under.  The final stage tackled a circuit of 20 laps at 4.5km each in downtown Adelaide.  Starting the day in seventh place at 19-seconds behind leader Simon Gerrans (GreenEdge), team rider Jan Bakelants, 25, came up with a plan to improve his standings.

“I thought about this early this morning,” explained the Belgian rider.  “I said to the mechanics, ‘Put on the TT wheels because I have a plan today’.  Nobody believed it but it worked out pretty nice.  I was a bit scared of Michael Matthews who was only ten seconds behind me and if he were to win the stage and take the ten-second bonus, he would have jumped over me and Edvald Boasson Hagen too.   So I decided that I would try to pass Boasson Hagen by doing something in the intermediate sprint.

“I saw the opportunity to go and I could make a nice gap,” said Bakelants, who was awarded the jersey for most aggressive rider in the final stage.  At one point Bakelants was the virtual race leader on the road as he held 52-seconds. “I could see on the power meter I was going really fast, so after I earned the bonus seconds, when Cameron Meyer went through, I was on his wheel.  For me it felt really easy at that speed.  There were only 8 laps to go and this way I didn’t have to fight for a position in the peloton so it was good for me.”

Eventually Meyers stopped working, seemingly to protect the lead of teammate Gerrans, but soon enough the defending champion from 2011 attacked the Bakelants group and tried to win the stage.  The sprinters would have none of that, however, and Lotto-Belisol, Team Sky and Lampre-ISD all lined up their trains to swamp Meyer and gain control of the race. 

In the final kilometer Andre Geipel (Lotto) scorched the left side of the course in a win that looked all too easy.  Gerrans maintained his lead on the same time with Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) to earn his second career victory in the Tour Down Under.

Asked about the clever move by Bakelants to gain three bonus seconds in the sprints, Director Azevedo confirmed that it was smart riding that earned the young Belgian World Tour points for his sixth place position.  “I am a very happy man,” said Azevedo.  “Of course if we would have won the GC I would be more happy but for the first race of the season I think the team did very good work.  We were fighting every day to win a stage and win the team GC.” 

Working hard all week paid off for Linus Gerdemann, too, earning him 12th place on the GC and helping secure the Teams win for RADIOSHACK NISSAN TREK.  “This was a good week for us,” said the 29-year old German.  “We won the team GC and had two in the top ten, one of them on the podium, so I think it’s a good start for us, especially with a new batch of guys.  By racing together here we have learned which strengths each guy has and how we can best work together.  I’d say we are ready for the next race.”

Next Up:  RADIOSHACK NISSAN TREK will race in the Tour of Qatar February 5 – 10 and Challenge Mallorca February 5 – 9.