Andre Greipel of Lotto Soudal has won the second stage of the 2015 Tour De France.
The stage goodbye to Utrecht for a 166km stage to the Neeljte Jans Delta Park and four riders in Stef Clement, Armindo Fonseca, Perrig Quémeneur and Jan Barta were straight on the attack,
They had a lead of 2.41 after 36kms and were riding at a speed of 46kms for the first hour.
However, the hot warm weather had gone and there was thunder and lightening as well as a torrential downpour which forced many thousands to turn away from the finish line.
The weather was also not good further down the road and this caused echelons in the pelotons as Jan Barta took the sprint in Rotterdam with the other escapers beating John Degenkolb, Kristoff, Sagan and Cavendish to the majority of the points.
With 61kms left, the escapers were caught by the Team Sky led peloton.
The wet roads brought crashes with Wilco Kelderman, Hansen, Van Summeren, Diddier and Bouhani as Froome, Stannard, Thomas and Cavendish got themselves into a front group of 28 riders, which was 52 seconds ahead of a group containing Vincenzo Nibali and 1.01 ahead of a group containing Nairo Quintana with just under forty kilometres left.
Nibali suffered mechanical problems and was struggling to get back to the second group with 25kms left.
The front group were to have their day and a sprint ensued with Andre Greipel getting past Peter Sagan, Fabian Cancellera and Mark Cavendish, followed by Daniel Oss, Greg Van Avermaet, Chris Froome, Tom Dumoulin, Tony Martin and Warren Barguill to win in 3.23.03.
The main peloton rolled in 5.15 down.
Fabian Cancellera takes over the lead of the race with Tom Dumoulin taking charge of the white jersey.
Andre Greipel was full of his praise for his team as he took the win which means he has had a victory in eight grand tours. "I'd like to thank the team for their performance today," said Greipel.
"This was about teamwork. I feel they were superb. I felt strong and I'm just really happy to have won.
"Today was a tough day out. We followed a different strategy today, riding hard early on to drop some of my sprint rivals. It worked out well. It was really nervous with all the wind and rain. The team managed to keep me up in the front, and it was a key factor. I'm really happy about my teammates and really proud we won the first stage."
Picture copyright of Covsupport News Service
Source: DSG
