Racing out the finale today on the streets of Adelaide, the riders of the Santos Tour Down Under brought the 2012 edition of the race to a close with a fast, aggressive 90 kilometres of competition. As expected, several big attacks went clear during the 20 lap event, with the two intermediate sprints making things tactical due to the fact that the top two riders were level on time.
Alejandro Valverde’s Movistar team would have liked to see the Spaniard take time there; race leader Simon Gerrans’ GreenEdge squad were determined not to give him any opportunity, and so it suited them to give moves a bit of leeway.
The video summary below gives an indication of how things played out, and also features post-stage interviews with two key players.
A full race report can be found here, while a gallery of 25 photos is here: