Columbia-Highroad’s André Greipel has seized his second straight stage win and his ninth win of the season in the Ster-ElektroToer in Holland on Friday, and has now become the race’s overall leader.  Greipel was the fastest in the bunch sprint which decided the 179-kilometre hilly stage starting and finishing in Schimmert, outgunning Australian Allan Davis and Slovenian Borut Bozic.

“The stage looked tougher in the route book than it actually was. But in any case the team did a brilliant job of controlling the race on each of the stage’s climbs, marking a steady tempo all the way on each ascent so there were never really any dangerous moves,” Greipel said afterwards.  

“We caught a break of six riders with about five kilometres to go, and then after that it was all about going for the bunch sprint.  With 3000 metres to go I still had five team-mates in front of me, so we were in a dominating position.  Then [Columbia-Highroad team-mate] Mark Renshaw gave me a perfect lead-out, and really all I had to do was give it everything in the final  200 metres.”

As well as taking two stage wins, Greipel is now the leader in both the general classification and the points competition.  “Whether I can win both all depends on how I recover from today’s stage.  I was very windy and I used up a lot of energy getting through.  The overall will be harder for me to defend, particularly on Saturday’s stage, but I’ll do my best to keep it.”