Cycling: Henderson sprints to Paris-Nice stage win

Otago's Greg Henderson took out a "slow motion sprint" in winning a dramatic first stage of the Paris-Nice cycle race today (NZT).

Henderson outsprinted the leading group of 17 riders for victory in the 201.5km stage, edging out Slovenia's Grega Bole and France's Jeremy Galland in a winning 4hr 22mins 17sec.

Tour de France champion and race favourite Alberto Contador crashed three kilometres from the finish in Contres after being dropped from the front following a harsh effort by the Caisse d'Epargne team of last year's winner Luis Leon Sanchez.

Henderson's Team Sky website reported that the New Zealander joined a 15-man breakaway with around nine kilometres to go and positioned himself intelligently over the closing stages before powering ahead of Bole at the line.

The race battled through testing conditions, with crosswinds fracturing the peloton repeatedly and headwinds slowing down the sprint to the line dramatically.

Henderson told Eurosport: "With around 100 metres to go there was so much action and I made a move to come across to the front.

"As we came into the final straight the headwinds meant it was like a slow-motion sprint, just so hard, and I was lucky enough to get it on the line. "

Henderson, 33, a Commonwealth Games gold medalist in the points race, also won the 15km scratch race at the 2004 world championships. He said today's win showed the progress Team Sky had had made in their debut season

"This result is a credit to the high management of the team who put us riders together - they selected a group of great guys.

"This season we want to come out and prove to people we're not here for show. We're here to race hard and to win bike races.

"We've had a great start to the season and to win here at such a beautiful race is real honour." Prologue winner Lars Boom retained his overall lead, but Contador, who won Paris-Nice in 2007, is 25 seconds behind in the standings, in eighth place. Henderson is now sitting sixth, 20 seconds off the pace.

The eight-stage, 1287km race ends on Sunday. Tuesday's second stage will take the riders from Contres to Limoges on a 201km trek featuring three third-category climbs.