It was almost another day of textbook execution for Orica-GreenEdge at the Tour Down Under as the team appeared on the cusp of a second straight stage win, following on from Caleb Ewan’s victory, only for a crash in the final 500 metres of stage 2 to bring down Daryl Impey and Simon Gerrans.
The team has spent the majority of the race on the front, with Michael Hepburn and Luke Durbridge, controlling affairs and keeping the time gap to lone leader Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal) manageable.
The crash didn’t affect Gerrans’ time, courtesy of the inside three kilometre rule, but he did miss the opportunity to contest for bonus seconds on the line. A minor consolation for Gerrans was that he picked up five bonus seconds earlier in the day and now sits third on GC, five seconds in arrears to stage winner Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff).
"The stage was really going to plan, the guys rode the near perfect race for us. They dragged that break back so we could do the intermediate sprint where I won it and Caleb was second before Adam obviously slipped away," Gerrans told reports from the team bus. "We were able to take some more valuable seconds at the next sprint and then coming into the finish the guys were exactly where they needed to be, we were really well placed and Daryl was about to go around the group and open up when someone hit the wheel in front of him and just fell straight in front of him.
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"So he went down, and I went over the top with nowhere to go. All’s not lost for the day, we picked up a valuable five seconds on the road but I am bitterly disappointed that we didn’t finish off the teammate with a win at the end of the stage."
Gerrans endured a horror run of crashes and broken bones last season but explained he knew there was no major damage from this crash, merely losing some skin.
"No not at all, as soon as I picked myself up again I knew that nothing was severely wrong," said Gerrans if he feared for the worst. "Obviously I asked Daryl how he was straight away and he seems to be fine. Onto the next stage now…"
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