Tour Down Under stage 6

Euskaltel closed out the Tour Down Under with a battling performance in today's early hours. The sixth and final stage of the WorldTour event wasn't particularly suited to the outfit, what with it's flat, 20-lap, 90km criterium in the streets of Adelaide, but the riders were nonetheless keen to put their mark on the race by featuring in the early breaks.

Gorka Izagirre, who failed to live up to his own lofty standards in yesterday's stage to Willunga, infiltrated the huge, early breakaway that quickly built up a decent lead. The strong-looking break was never likely to succeed though and was duly reeled in without too much of a fuss. Romain Sicard made a late and bold move in the closing stages, but there was no escaping the sprint finish. The dash for the line was as anticipated one for big German Greipel, who led home a 63-man first group. R Pérez and Sáez were part of that group, while Izagirre crossed the line in 91st at 36 seconds. García finished up his first WorldTour race in 110th at 1:05. Sicard was 125th at 4:28, while Urtasun and Cabedo both failed to finish.

These results made for the following final general classification:

• 40, Gorka Izagirre
• 56, Rubén Pérez
• 65, Romain Sicard
• 83, Adrián Sáez
• 91, Ricardo García

The team finished 16th in the teams' classification.