Team Intermarché-Wanty made a brilliant start of the season this Tuesday 16th of January in the Tour Down Under. Biniam Girmay climbed on the third step of the podium of the opening stage, which was decided in a bunch sprint in the streets of Tanunda.
The major part of the stage was animated by Georg Zimmermann, one of the two escapees of the day. The German rider won the second intermediate sprint and the precious three bonus seconds bringing him to fifth place in the provisional classification after the stage.
Once the breakaway was caught with 60 kilometer to go, the team focused on the expected group sprint around Girmay, the protected rider for the sprint. The Eritrean rider started from far and produced a powerful effort to finish on the podium, half a bike length away from the winner.
Just behind Girmay, Madis Mihkels assured a double top ten for the walloon team with ninth place. Thanks to this, the 20 year old Estonian rider conquered the white jersey of best young rider. Intermarché-Wanty leads the team classification.
“There’s no better feeling than crossing the finish line first, so at first it’s always disappointing to finish in second or third place. But I will remember my good feeling in the sprint. The team protected me in the front in the final kilometers, until I lost some positions on a speed bump just before a corner with 1.5 kilometer to go. It wasn’t easy to make up for this, given the high speed of the lead out of BORA-Hansgrohe. So I finished one bike length away from the victory. Tomorrow is a new chance, which might suit me even better. Because of the hilly parcours it will be a challenge for the sprinter’s teams to control. I’m confident that I can survive on this terrain and I’m hoping for another good sprint.”
