Sutton nails another at Jayco
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While Garmin-Slipstream’s Chris Sutton made it a hat trick at Australia’s Jayco Herald Sun Tour Thursday, beating out Fly V Australia’s Jonathan Cantwell in a bunch kick for a third consecutive stage, what was more interesting was how the general classification now sets up for Thursday’s 10km time trial.
The fourth stage of this tour, a 139km roundabout route from Anglesea to Barwon Heads, played out in nearly identical fashion to the previous day: two riders escaped, were caught close to the finish, and Sutton, led out by teammate Bradley Wiggins, beat Cantwell in a sprint.
With time bonuses earned with the stage win and intermediate sprints, Sutton now sits five seconds in front of Cantwell heading into the TT; both men are sprinters not known for their time trial abilities.
Wiggins, unquestionably the strongest time trialist in the field, sits third overall, 43 seconds down heading into a short and technical TT that will be run on road bikes using clip-on aerobars and disc wheels. In an effort to save costs for teams that traveled to Australia for the race, time-trial specific bikes are not allowed.
With a final-stage criterium on tap Saturday, conventional wisdom dictates that the overall winner of the Sun Tour will undoubtedly be one of these three men, and that it all might even come down to the final sprint for time bonuses on Lygon Street in Melbourne.
Rain, breakaway, rain, sprint finish
On a stage that began and ended with rain showers, 82 riders took the start line, down from 101 in Ballarat for Sunday’s opening preface criterium.
The day’s route offered up an intermediate sprint and a Category 3 climb in the first 18km before a 10km Cat. 1 ascent with an average gradient of 4.2 percent that topped out 38km into the 139km stage. From the bottom of the descent, in Deans Marsh, the route was a flat run-in to the finish in Barwon Heads, with winds the only major obstacle for the riders.
Perhaps signaling things to come, the first attack of the race came from Wiggins.
Sutton took the day’s first intermediate sprint from Cantwell, which came at the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch, a symbolic point commemorating the road, which was built between 1919 and 1932 by more than 3000 returning World War I soldiers in tribute to their fallen comrades. Wiggins finished third on the intermediate sprint, and later would finish third on the stage.
By winning the intermediate sprint, Sutton extended his lead over Cantwell from one second to two seconds, while Wiggins gained one second.
Shortly after the memorial arch came a short and punchy KOM, won by Garmin’s Tom Peterson, who took the polka-dot jersey Wednesday and solidified his lead Thursday. With no KOM points on offer during Friday’s time trial or Saturday’s circuit race, Peterson consolidated his KOM title.
Nine riders hit the cat. 1 climb with a 25-second gap, however they were quickly pulled back on the climb as Wiggins set tempo, fracturing the field behind into several groups.
On the descent from Benwerrin into Deans Marsh, the peloton faced the worst rains the it has seen all week, however shortly after the clouds cleared and the sun, which has been absent all tour, briefly showed itself.
After some regrouping the day’s decisive breakaway was established, and as it was Wednesday, only two riders would be given a leash — young Canberra rider Michael Matthews (Jayco AIS) and former Australian road champion, Darren Lapthorne (Rapha Condor).
That leash wouldn’t extend far, however; behind, the Garmin and Fly V teams kept the break within two minutes. Lapthorne and Matthews gobbled up the second intermediate sprint, while Cantwell took third, taking back one second, meaning the difference between the two sprinters was back to a single second.
During the final 35km the gap yo-yoed from 1:30 to 30 seconds as Fly V chased to set up Cantwell for the win, and the bonus seconds it might bring, while Garmin was content to let the pair of riders fight for the stage win.
“It split a few times. We weren’t so interested in keeping it together today,” Garmin director Matt White said. “Cantwell got Sutton on one of the intermediate sprints, so we let the gap go out, and without a stage win Fly V wanted to contest the victory.”
Once Fly V brought the two leaders to within 30 seconds, Garmin took over, and the break was caught 12km from the line. As he’s done all week, Wiggins took over from Svein Tuft and delivered Sutton to the line, while Cantwell could only watch as Sutton crossed the line with his arms outstretched for the third straight day. Wiggins finished third, just behind the two sprinters.
“I was yelling at the boys from 3k to go and then I told Brad to go 500 meters out. I was going to let him have the stage, as I thought we could take one and two,” Sutton said after the race. “But then I could feel riders coming and I thought it could have been either Jonathan Cantwell or Jaan Kirsipuu, so I went for it.”
Though beaten, Cantwell, who retained the points jersey, remained optimistic, saying he’s in the form of his life and that he likes his chances against Sutton in the time trial.
“For two sprinters to go head to head it's been a bit of a strange outcome so far,” Cantwell said. “But I have 38 seconds up my sleeve on Bradley and anything can happen.”
White agreed that the time gaps between the two sprinters, and their difference over Wiggins, made the likelihood of the time bonuses on the final stage a race promoter’s dream come true.
“It’s a bit of an unknown quantity,” White said. “Neither of them is known as time trialists. And it’s not your traditional time trial as well. It’s 10km, so it’s not a prologue and it’s run on normal road bikes. It should be interesting.”
Women’s racing
Riding for HP-Pinarello, Aussie star Rochelle Gilmore won the opening stage of the inaugural Honda Hybrid Women’s Tour, a three-stage race run concurrently with the Sun Tour.
Gilmore out-sprinted Kirsty Brown (MB Cycles), a two-time national criterium champion, to win the 55km road race, which finished an hour before the men’s race began.
“We tried to take control of the race,” Gilmore said. “I didn’t have particularly great legs after a big track session yesterday, but I knew that would be the case. We did exactly what we wanted to do. Kirsti was the rider I was concerned about. She’s a sprinter as well, and they’ve come all the way down from Queensland with their strongest team. She always wants to win, and I always want to win, so we go head-to-head quite often.”
On Friday the women’s peloton will contest the same 10km time trial course in Geelong as the men’s peloton. Brown’s teammate Amber Halliday, is a hot favorite, however Gilmore said her teammate, Vicki Whitelaw, is the rider upon whom her team will pin its hopes.
“HP-Pinarello recruited Vicki for the time trial tomorrow,” Gillmore said. “I want to have a rest day, because I’m in the middle of a big track block and it’s not in my best interests to push three days in a row, so I’ll take a rest tomorrow, and the pressure is on Vicki.”
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