Tour Down Under: Video, Interviews, Photos, and Files

The 2010 Tour Down Under kicked off yesterday with the Cancer Council Helpline Classic in Adelaide, Australia. A small breakaway group including Lance Armstrong managed to stay in front of the peloton for a surprisingly long stretch of the race, but in the end Team Sky dominated with a strong team effort in the final two laps, leading out team leader Greg Henderson for the win.



"It was obviously a tremendous team effort, I can't say enough for my teammates," said Greg Henderson in an interview with Dirk Friel of TrainingPeaks after the race. "The speed in which they delivered me to the line was incredible... It was just nice to have that feeling, to be at the back of a train that's going at warp speed, it's a tremendous feeling."

Click here for an interview with Greg Henderson

Team Fly V australia has also been enjoying a good group dynamic, thanks to the training camp on the Gold Coast they were able to enjoy for the week before the race. David Kemp of  Team Fly V described the group dynamic to Friel: "It's been really good Dirk, just to get the whole team together for the first time, so to see everyone for the 2010 season together, meshing, and just getting to know each other, building that mateship... without that I think it's hard for a team to gel, so I think we've got an advantage over the other teams who haven't really had a chance to get together yet."

Check out David Kemp's file from the race here, and listen to the interview here.

Aside from the group dynamic, another important consideration for training is the temperature difference between January training in the northern hemisphere and racing in the middle of the southern summer. Allen Lim of Team Radioshack described the methods the team has been using to help prepare Lance Armstrong for Australia and ultimately for France in July. "We're taking this opportunity right now between Hawaii and Australia to really think about the heat for July.  Being down under is a really great opportunity because it's summer here and so it allows us to think about what we need to do to prepare for the summer, especially with respect to thermal regulation and hydration which are two really important aspects of a performance especially at this level."

"You can see a lot about how someone is adapting to heat by looking at core temperatures in a very hot environment. What you start to see is that the suffering capacity of the body to deal with heat is a lot stronger, so it takes a lot longer at the same temperature before his core temperature starts to rise because things like his sweat rate improve, his plasma bulion expands because of the exposure to the heat, so all things that help keep him cooler under stress."

Listen to the interview with Allen Lim here.

Read more about the race on CyclingNews and on Velonews, and check back on our blog later this week for more possible updates!