ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) — Spain’s Alejandro Valverde won the fifth and longest stage of the Tour Down Under on Saturday to remnain in position to race for the overall victory in his return from a two-year doping ban.
Valverde outsprinted Australia’s Simon Gerrans — a stage winner on the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana — to win the 95-mile stage that finished with a climb to the summit of Old Willunga Hill.
Gerrans will wear the tour leader’s ochre jersey Sunday in the final stage — a 56-mile race around a street circuit in downtown Adelaide — but there is no time difference between him and Valverde, meaning a countback might be needed to decide the winner.
