Emotional return

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ADELAIDE, Australia -- Spain's Alejandro Valverde made an emotional return from a two-year doping ban by winning the fifth and longest stage of the Tour Down Under on Saturday to close on overall victory in the first event of the 2012 World Tour.

Valverde outsprinted Australia's Simon Gerrans -- a stage winner on the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana -- to claim the 151.5 kilometre stage which finished with a gruelling climb to the summit of Old Willunga Hill.

Gerrans will wear the tour leader's ochre jersey in Sunday's final stage -- a 90 km race around a street circuit in downtown Adelaide -- but there is no time difference between him and Valverde, meaning a countback may be needed to decide the winner.