Henderson tops on shortened stage in Murcia

Team Columbia's Greg Henderson grabbed the sprint victory and the overall lead in the Vuelta Murcia on a stage which was drastically shortened due to high winds on Thursday. The New Zealander bested Euskaltel-Euskadi's Ruben Perez and countryman Julian Dean (Garmin-Slipstream), taking the overall lead from the shoulders of Australian Graeme Brown of Rabobank.

"We raced for about 50 kilometres but then it got very windy and guys were getting blown off the road, so the organisers decided to neutralise most of the stage," Henderson explained. "They then told us that the racing would start again just three kilometres from the line. When we reached that point of the course, everybody knew that was when racing would start so there'd been a lot of fighting for position beforehand. On top of that it had just started to rain and the road surfaces weren't brilliant, so it was all very tense."

"I took one right-hand curve well," added Henderson, "and then was about fifth or sixth back coming into a second bend, a sharp left-hander, with about 350 metres to go. Me and Hoffie [sports director Tristan Hoffman] had looked at the route book during the stage to get an idea of the finish and he'd told me to take this corner full gas. It was only when I came into the corner in fifth or sixth place at full gas and noticed at the last moment that everybody else was braking that I got worried!"