First Endurance sprinter André Greipel (Columbia-HTC) racked up his third stage win in the 2009 Vuelta a Espana today, a victory which simultaneously moved the Columbia-HTC rider back into the lead of the race’s points classification and clocked Columbia-HTC’s 80th season win.  On stage 16 from Cordoba to Puertollano, Greipel blasted across the line ahead of France’s William Bonnet and Italian Daniele Bennati for Columbia-HTC’s fourth stage victory in the Tour of Spain.

“It’s a very important win for me, I very much wanted to get the victory today for a lot of reasons,” Greipel said afterwards.  ”It was a tricky finish with a lot of corners, but my team-mates kept me in front and I managed to stay out of trouble. We were lucky that only one rider was in the break and that made it a lot easier for us to control the race during the stage.”

Discussing his chances of keeping the green points jersey to Madrid, Greipel said “there are two stages that should finish in a bunch sprint and two that are going that are very mountainous, so it’s going to be difficult. We’ll see in Madrid.”  The German crossed the finish line pointing repeatedly at the sky and explained afterwards that “I lost my best friend three years ago on this exact day, and also my grandfather died on this day, too.”

The German’s 18th victory of the season is also the 80th of the season for Columbia-HTC men’s team, who also won a stage on Tuesday in the Tour of Britain.