BORA - hansgrohe finished the Tour Down Under with three stage wins by Sam Welsford. The Australian was unbeatable in the sprint stages and also ended up taking home the points jersey.
General Classification
01 S. Williams 19:13:34
02 J. Narvaez + 0:09
03 I. del Toro + 0:11
13 B. Zwiehoff + 0:57
Sam Welsford on the achievements of the team: "This has been an incredible Tour Down Under, with our three stage wins in front of a home crowd. It's unbelievable when you think that we took out half the stages of this year's race. The guys rode so well all week and I'm glad to have been able to reward their hard work with those wins, and also with the sprint jersey. It's been the perfect start to the year for us, especially for me having just come into the team this year. I can't wait to keep this momentum going at my next races. I'd also like to thank the guys for having such belief in me right from the start, and also all the staff here in Australia for their support."
Sports Director Bernie Eisel: "The teamwork in our squad worked perfectly. I have to give special mention to our extraordinary sprint train of Patrick Gamper, Filip Maciejuk, Ryan Mullen and Danny van Poppel, and of course Sam Welsford, who was able to finish it all off. Although on stage 4, the lead-out didn't work out quite so perfectly, Sam showed how incredibly strong he is. You could also still see how well the guys worked together and motivated each other. Everyone involved put in a great performance. The result on the penultimate day with the Willunga Hill climb was not exactly what we had hoped for. We would have liked the race to be a bit harder, but unfortunately only a few teams had the ambition to make it really tough. So it came down to the final sprint on Willunga Hill and this race situation didn't fully play into the hands of Roger Adria and Ben Zwiehoff. Although they both fought hard, the stage was a controlled affair. The time differences between the first five riders were only small in the lead-up to the last day, so anyone had a chance to win. We had planned if there was an opportunity to mix things up with Roger or Ben on the last stage, then we wanted to try and shake up the race a bit. Either way, we're definitely happy with three wins from six stages here in January in Australia."