ADELAIDE, Australia (AP): Australian Matthew Goss won the criterium prelude to the Tour Down Under cycle race Sunday while Lance Armstrong started his last professional event outside the United States with a safe 68th-place finish.

Goss beat his compatriot and HTC Highroad teammate Mark Renshaw by a second and Robbie McEwen of Armstrong's Team RadioShack produced a remarkable ride for third after being stopped by a crash 500 meters from the finish.

The crash brought down last year's criterium winner Greg Henderson and disrupted tactical team rides that attempted to set up the race for glamor sprinters Mark Cavendish of Britain and Andre Greipel of Germany, the 2010 Tour Down Under champion.

Goss and Renshaw avoided the chaos at the second to last corner that split the field of 133 riders and extinguished the chances of many of the race's stars.

McEwen, a 12-time stage winner at the Tour de France and a three-time winner of the tour's sprint classification, distinguished his first ride for Armstrong's team with his recovery from a seemingly impossible situation to share the podium with his fellow Australians.

"It was a good result from the position I came from and promising for the rest of the week," McEwen said.

"Had it not happened, I reckon I could have won. But for the first result of the year and considering being stopped with 500 meters to go, it was as good as a win."

The race, over 30 laps of a 1.7-kilometer (1 mile) circuit in parkland near Adelaide's business district, was led for the first 16 laps by a breakaway group of five riders including Spain's Markel Irizar, Dane Martin Mortensen, and Alexandr Kuschynski of Belarus.

The group stretched its lead to 35 seconds but the breakaway dwindled to three riders by the 17th lap and was eventually claimed by the peloton five laps from the finish.

Jurgen Van De Walle and Olivier Kaisen of Greipel's Omega Pharma-Lotto team and Bert Grabsch of Cavendish's HTC-Highroad outfit rode boldly at the head of the peloton in the hope of setting up the race for their sprinters.

Britain's Team Sky also worked hard to put Henderson in a winning position but their efforts came to nothing when the late crash divided the body of the field.

Greipel recovered to finish 15th, American Tyler Farrar finished 11th but Cavendish dropped back to 108th, 30 seconds behind the winner.

Armstrong, who doesn't relish the hazardous, wheel to wheel racing of the criterium, stayed in the middle of the pack for most of the race and avoided the crash. Henderson was not hurt.

Placings in Sunday's race do not count toward overall standings.

The Tour Down Under officially begins Tuesday with a 138km (90 miles) stage through South Australia State.

MELBOURNE: Roger and Rafa were behaving like best mates on Rod Laver Arena - high-fiving, hugging, shaking hands and laughing at each other's jokes on the eve of the Australian Open.

Roger Federer and Rafal Nadal were at the "Rally for Relief" to raise money for victims of the fatal floods in Australia's northeastern Queensland state. It'll be a completely different story if they're back on the same court two weeks from Sunday.

Federer is the defending champion. Nadal has won the three Grand Slam titles in the interim and is aiming to become the first man since Laver in 1969 to win four straight majors. It's being dubbed the "Rafa Slam."

The pair played on opposite sides of the net, and the played together against Kim Clijsters and Sam Stosur in front of a capacity 15,000 crowd which paid to watch a host of tennis stars in the fundraiser. Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick wore microphones and joked with the crowd, playing alongside and against the likes of Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka in the celebrity hit-and-giggle exhibition.

Neither Federer nor Nadal wore microphones when they played a little later. It was mostly smiles but there were glimpses of competitive intensity when they faced each other in mixed doubles.

At one point, 16-time Grand Slam winner Federer used his court craft to bring Nadal to the net and then beat him with a backhand passing shot. The muscular Spaniard replied next point, leaping high and smashing an overhead winner beyond Federer's reach. After each of those winners, the two smiled broadly at each other.

Nadal also bludgeoned a forehand down the line on the last point of their singles mini-match and then, shaking hands and laughing, the two standout players in men's tennis joined forces against U.S. Open champion Clijsters and French Open finalist Sam Stosur - Australia's best hope in the women's draw.

Around their exhibition Sunday, Federer said Nadal has "been playing incredible."

"An incredible run through the French, Wimbledon, U.S. Open - it was incredible to see. Then obviously it's hard to maintain. But he's going to be for sure ready for this. I'll follow it very closely. If I get a chance, I hope I can stop him."

The first major of the year gets underway Monday with 2008 women's champion Maria Sharapova playing Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn in the opening match on center court, followed by No. 1 Wozniacki against Gisela Dulko of Argentina and Federer playing Lukas Lacko of Slovakia.

Third-seeded Djokovic, the 2008 champion, plays Spaniard Marcel Granollers in the main night match on Rod Laver Arena.

Andy Roddick plays Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic on the second showcourt. Following Roddick on Hisense Arena will be fourth-seeded Venus Williams against Italy's Sara Errani and seven-time Grand Slam winner Justine Henin against Indian qualifier Sania Mirza.

With Serena Williams unable to defend her title because of her injured foot, Clijsters is growing in favouritism at Melbourne Park.

She faces a challenging opening match Tuesday against former No. 1-ranked Dinara Safina, who slumped in the rankings last year due to a back injury and hasn't reached a Grand Slam final since consecutive defeats in championship matches at Melbourne and Paris in 2009.

Nadal withdrew from his quarterfinal here last year to Murray, who went on to lose the final to Federer. He won't be in action until Tuesday, when he starts his campaign for the Rafa Slam against Marcos Daniel of Brazil.

Debate will no doubt intensify as to the status of the Rafa Slam against Laver's four in a calendar year will intensify the closer he gets to achieving it. Some pundits consider Nadal's achievement a match for Laver's because he's won on all three surfaces and had tougher competition.

Laver, who won on grass at the Australian and U.S. Opens and at Wimbledon and on clay at the French 41 years ago, still believes the true Grand Slam can only be achieved in a calendar year.

Federer, who has twice won three consecutive majors but been blocked by Nadal from holding all four, has conceded his main rival deserves to be favorite at Melbourne Park.

"Look, I think it's unbelievable what Rafa's been able to do. That in some ways makes him the favourite for this tournament," Federer said on the weekend.

Nadal disagreed.

"No, for sure, No!" Nadal responded. "I for sure am feeling less favourite than (Federer) - and not more favourite than Djokovic, (Andy) Murray, (Robin) Soderling, these kind of players."

Nadal said the dominance of he and Federer have enjoyed in the last five years has been phenomenal, but he's always wary of what could happen next.

"I don't know how many tournaments, but in more than 20 Grand Slams, only two or three players won. I think that's impossible to continue like this," he said. - AP