Michael Matthews – Day 2

Stage 2 of the Tour Down Under was a very interesting day.  It felt really good today, surprising after a long hot day yesterday.  A brake away of two riders went away from the start and got the first two sprints and I won the bunch sprint for 3rd in both which gave me a 1 second time bonus on both.  When we finally got the sterling loop Wil Clarke had 11 minutes with four laps of sterling to go.  We thought we would catch him but got to the last lap and he still had 8 minutes on the bunch.  The team was pulling full bland and got it down to 1 minute, I was in 5th position and hit out with 150 meters to go and got second with Simon Gerrans the Australian champion finishing 3rd.