Melissa Hoskins Sprints To Santos Women’s Tour Stage 2 Victory

West Australia?s Melissa HOSKINS (ORICA-AIS) sprinted to victory on day two of the Santos Women?s Tour, one day after team-mate Valentina Scandalora took the inaugural Tour leader’s jersey. In front of huge?crowds ahead of the?Santos Tour Down Under’s People’s Choice Classic, Hoskins beat national criterium champion Kimberley Wells (High5 Dream Team) and track Commonwealth Games champion Annette EDMONDSON (Wiggle Down Under) to claim line honours in the Jarvis Subaru Criterium.

 

?It?s been a while since I?ve been able to throw the hands in the air, so I?m pretty stoked to be able to start the season off on such a good run,? said Hoskins who represented Australia at the 2012 London Olympics and 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. ?We were looking to protect the leaders jersey, that was our number one priority from the start and the race was so fast that nobody was getting away. ?A lot of teams didn?t want anything to go up the road either, and they wanted a bunch kick. There were a couple of sprinters who wanted to have a go before tomorrow, so for us it was actually an easy day in the office until the last two laps.? For Hoskins, who races in Europe for most of the season, the opportunity to win in front of a home crowd was a big one. ?We don?t very often get to race on home soil, we?re away for most of the year, so for us to be able to show the colours here we want to do them proud and do the best we can.? Stage one winner Scandalora retains her general classification lead with two stages remaining, six seconds ahead of Hoskins and Lauren KITCHEN (Roxsolt). Earlier in the race, Loren ROWNEY (Roxsolt) extended her lead in the King of the Mountain classification, taking the two intermediate points. In the points classification, Edmondson has started to build a lead after winning the intermediate sprint half-way through the race. The Santos Women?s Tour continues tomorrow, with a challenging 71km road race from Tanunda to Campbelltown. 2015 Santos Women’s Tour: Stage 2 Photo Gallery Text via Cycling Australia Media Release

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