Marcel Kittel was unable to sprint for the win in the opening stage of the Tour Down Under and to back up his win in the People’s Choice Classic two days ago. Their group caught the escape at the line, but it was too late: Simon Geschke took 12th and Kittel 32nd.

The team ended with “disappointed faces,” but they couldn’t do much against the determination of local rider Jack Bobridge (Budget Forklifts) who won the stage and took the lead.

Bobridge led a four-man escape clear in the first kilometres of the 132-kilometre stage from Tanunda to Campbelltown. They took the gap up to two minutes, but the peloton appeared to have control.

Having locals like Bobridge and Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEDGE) helped as the gap narrowed because they knew when to ride faster in the final 10kilometres. The peloton barely managed to pull them back, but the sprint teams lacked organisation through the narrow canyon roads.

“Four teams pulled all day, and we were one of them. We put Lawson Craddock up there and he did a good job,” Race Coach Addy Engels said. “The final was too hectic and twisty. From 10 to five kilometres remaining, the gap went from 25 to 40 seconds so we couldn’t get in a good position anymore. The team has disappointed faces at the moment.”

“We were hoping for some more help in the chase, but everyone was a bit too relaxed,” said Geschke. “We could see them down the road, but in the narrow canyon, it was harder to organise the chase and Astana was blocking a little bit. 

"Marcel made it over the climb pretty easy, so we are disappointed. We want to win a stage with Marcel, and today was a good opportunity we missed. It motivates us more to keep fighting here.”

“We had a pretty good tactic and it looked like it was going to work out for us. We weren’t going to take the race under control but a couple of teams wanted to ride and Sky asked if we wanted to put one guy in from the beginning, and we did,” Giant-Alpecin pilot Koen de Kort explained.

“After the climb it was fast for a little while and then all of a sudden no one was riding any more. It just stopped and the break rode back out to 40 seconds. I panicked and started riding because I could only see Tom Dumoulin and Marcel Kittel near me. In the end GC is still really important so maybe we gave up the chance in the sprint to keep GC. At least we came close enough that there is just a really small gap. For GC it’s still looking really good but it’s unfortunate it didn’t work out for the stage.”