André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) lets everyone know he's German champion and gives his sponsors a plug as well(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
André Greipel moves into the red points lead after his victory(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
André Greipel pumped with his stage win(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Greg Henderson celebrates André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) victory rather early(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) wins stage 6 of the GIro d'Italia(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Stage 6 victory of the Giro d'Italia was the third time in André Greipel's career that he's tasted victory at the Italian grand tour to go with his 2010 and 2008 triumphs. The German champion praised the effort of his Lotto-Soudal teammates to lead him to perfection and make up for the disappointment of losing stage 2 in Genoa.
"From the whole team it was good timing. For the last three kilometre it went like we planned it in the bus this morning and I am really happy the team set me up to sprint that good. It was a really nice team effort and this time I am happy that we didn't do any mistakes. Winning losing together, today we won," Greipel said of the win.
As Greipel started to celebrate victory at a grand tour for the eighth time in succession, riders including maglia rosa Alberto Contador, were hitting the ground after a spectator caused them to crash. While admitting that he didn't see the crash in real time, Greipel explained that any external cause of sprint crashes are unfortunate and wished Contador well
"I just saw the images now; it was some rows behind me it didn't look so well. Sometimes crashes are part of our job, our sport. I hope he's well, if something happens because of a spectator or whatever, I think it is not so nice."
The stage win also put Greipel into the points classification lead, two points ahead of Elia Viviani (Team Sky), although the 32-year-old explained his goal is stage wins and not the red jersey.
"Of course I am really happy to wear this jersey and we reached our goal with our stage win and now we can go and look to the upcoming stages. Why not go for another stage win and if it's still in the red jersey, it's really nice of course," he added.
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