Marcello Pavarin King of the Mountain Stage 1 Tour Down Under

  

After the first full stage of racing at Santos Tour Down Under in Australia, Vacansoleil-DCM's Marcello Pavarin captures the King Of the Mountain jersey and inches up to a respectable 7th place overall at just 9 seconds back.

More action shots on Bianchi USA's official Facebook page.

See Pavarin in a nice action shot here and here in the breakaway at velonation. 

Keep up with all the race results at the TDU official site. 

Tour Down Under 2012: Prologue Recap

Sunday, January 15th marked the start of the 2012 Pro Tour with the Prologue for the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia.

It also marked the debut of Vacansoleil-DCM astride their 2012 Bianchi Oltres.  Here is a short, 6-minute YouTube video recapping the prologue (double-click to launch in full screen format).  The team's Romain Feillu finished an impressive 13th.

See more photos on Bianchi USA's official Facebook fan page:

More commentary:

From Pez Cycling; "The bike race was good. Tour organizers said it was the fastest race to date... I also saw the aftermath of Vacansoleil-DCM’s Kenny van Hummel’s crash. He had some bad road rash, but it didn’t look like anything too serious."  Read more at Pez Cycling...