Kiwis provide great team support

Oct 1st, 11. The Tour de Wallonie is looking like a RadioShack versus Team Sky race and the Kiwis are doing their best to support their respective leaders.

Yesterday it was RadioShack's Robbie McEwen who took the stage win and the tour leader's yellow jersey in the UCI2.1 tour raced across the Belgian and French borders. Today it was Team Sky's Chris Sutton who crossed the line first.

To give McEwen the best chance of keeping his jersey, RadioShack Kiwis Sam Bewley and Jesse Sergent spent much of today's 154km stage on the front of the peloton chasing a nine rider break group. The break was only allowed a maximum gap of 3min and was brought back safely with 20km to go. 

BMC's Taylor Phinney tried to foil the sprint teams, but the motivation was too high and the sprint teams wound themselves up for the big play of the day.

Team Sky's leadout train was so fast it strung out the peloton, even the team's Kiwi fastman Greg Henderson said he had trouble holding his leadout position. He twittered, "[Juan Antonio] Flecha took a year off my life by pulling so hard for so long."

With the Kiwis help, Sutton took his third stage victory of the season.

"The team took the bull by the horns and really gave it some today for me. It was just incredible, and to finish off their beautiful work was amazing," Sutton said.

"The whole team was up there at the end. It was just a perfect lead-out. Two Skil-Shimano riders wanted to box onto Mat Hayman's wheel and I just let them on. Russ [Downing] was just in behind me protecting me. He was going to come around at the last minute if we ran out of men but Mat was going like 10 men.

"Then we hit he pavé which is where he really excels and he just got quicker and quicker. The Skil guys went too early and I just got a perfect run. It's been a great day not just for me but all the boys and the whole team."

McEwen and Sutton are equal on time, with McEwen retaining the leader's jersey heading into tomorrow's third of four stages.

Tour de Wallonie Picarde results ....