Jacobs Creek Tour Down Under - 2.3

Australia, January 15-20, 2002

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Stage 6 - January 20: Adelaide City Council circuit, 90km

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Start time: 13:00
Finish time: 15:15

14:45 - lap 20

At the start of the final lap, Tafi attacks again! But the bunch is having none of it and he is brought back. The Domo squad are on the front and looking to set up Jans Koerts for a stage victory - it seems like the final sprint will be a battle of the Belgians squads, with Lotto Adecco likely to try and move Robbie McEwen into a good position.

14: 51 - finish

Domo lead for the final lap and have Jans Koerts in a good position as the peloton goes over Montefiore Hill for the final time. As the peloton come onto War Memorial Drive the La Française Des Jeux squad moves into position and has their sprinter, Baden Cooke, in a good position for the finish but McEwen is in there, close to Cooke's wheel.

The FDJ squad crank it up for the sprint and give Cooke the lead out, but he's not expecting to have McEwen on his wheel.

With the finish line in sight, Cooke goes hard, McEwen jumps out and comes around Cooke, while CSC rider Julian Dean follows McEwen. In the final dash for the line, it's McEwen again! Dean takes second and Cooke gets third.

The results of the finale stage are: Robbie McEwen (Lotto Adecco), Julian Dean (CSC - Tiscali) and Baden Cooke (La Française Des Jeux).

Following his fourth win in the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under, Robbie McEwen told Cyclingnews' Karen Forman "my team-mates did a great job on the last lap. Stefan (Van Dijk) rode on the front and never let up.

"I never expected to come here and win four stages," he said. "People were coming up to me and asking if I was going to win again today, and four out of six ain't bad. I was feeling confident going into it and I felt sure my team would be there. In the last eight days I have picked up 145 UCI points, which puts me into the top 50 or 60 on the UCI's rankings, my highest rank ever."

Michael Rogers (Australian Insititute of Sport) safely finished the stage in the peloton and was delighted to have secured the overall win for the Tour. He even had the spare bike from the spectator (see story) which he used yesterday on the roof of the car "for good luck" in today's stage, but was back on his own Colnago after mechanics repaired it after yesterday's accident.

"Two years ago I won stage here, but I couldn't get over the hills. Now I've developed more as a rider and it's great to win."

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