Melbourne To Warrnambool Classic, Melbourne To Warrnambool Classic 278.6kms, , Victoria, Australia, Saturday, October, 17, 2015. Con Chronis
By Jamie Finch-Penninger – @FishysCP
The start was a tense one, with a few small crashes keeping the riders on their toes in the initial kilometres. A few attacks failed to stick, but a 2 man move of Ed White (GPM Stulz) and Tyson Chambers (African Wildlife Safaris) got an advantage before being bridged over to by a group of 3 containing Sam Hill (GPM Stulz) Peter Casey (SwiftCarbon PhysioHealth), Nicholas Squillari (Seight Cycling). The peloton seemed content with the composition of the move gained a maximum advantage of 16 and a half minutes on the peloton. The big teams CharterMason Giant and Avanti had their eyes on each other for the battle for the teams classification, so they didn’t want to commit to chasing too early, which contributed to the slow pace. With the gap at 10 minutes, the Jacob Kauffman decided to take it upon himself to bridge over solo, and he made it after a very long effort, with 130 kilometres remaining in the race. Search2retain-health.com.au went on the front to take some responsibility for the race, and as the gap dropped, more teams came to the front and there was a high pace going into the key climb into Camperdown. The break came across the KOM with Sam Hill and Ed White making it a GPM 1-2 in the 200 km Victorian Cycling Championship. The peleton was 6 and a half minutes back at this point, but the gap was dropping rapidly, and the peleton split over the top of the climb into two main groups. Making use of that situation, Budget Forklifts launched Jack Bobridge off the front with Darcy Wooley (African Wildlife Safaris) and Brad Linfield (Navitas Satalyst). Jacob Kauffman attacked the group he was in to lead solo, and after the chase from Bobridge caught the remnants of the initial break, the Trek-bound South Australian attacked to join Kauffman in front for a Budget Forklifts 1-2 on the road. At the final feed zone, the two had an advantage of 1’40 over the peleton. At that stage, it looked like the bunch was going to miss out, and lots of riders launched attacks to try and get across the gap. Rien Schuurhuis (Oliver’s Real Foods) was one of those to try his luck from such a move. “I was not going to win a sprint, so I had to try a move before the end. There were lots of moves and I tried to go when there was a lull.”
The attacks continued, but it wasn’t until Kauffmann and Bobridge were brought back at the 10 kilometre mark that the attackers were able to get any gaps. Dangerous late moves from a number of teams were shut down and countered before Jason Christie (Avanti) and Drew Ginn, of Olympic gold-medal rowing fame were able to create a decent gap. Christie was being clawed back slowly by Ginn, but in the end, the speed of the Budget Forklifts leadout swept up both of them with 1.5 kilometres to go. Budget Forklifts continued to set the race up for their main sprinter Scott Sunderland, and in the end he had far too much power for his rivals in the flat finish, and the result wasn’t in doubt once he opened up in the final few hundred metres. There was also no doubt that the team throughly deserved the win, as they had been part of the most dangerous move of the day, and were still strong enough to control the race for Sunderland to win it from a sprint. Orica-Greenedge 2016 neo pro Alexander Edmondson (SASI/Callidus Cycling) marked a great return to racing with 2nd and defending champion Oliver Kent-Spark (Search2retain-Health.com.au) was a fast finishing third.
Drew Ginn, who animated the race in the finale, spoke to Peloton Cafe at the finish. “For me it was a good moment to show myself. If you’re feeling alright, you may as well have a go. From 30 kilometres to go, there was lots of surging and counterattacking and eventually I managed to go with the right one and get away. At one point, there was me and another guy (Jason Christie) with a good gap on the bunch and I was reeling him back in slowly, but it was only a matter of time until the pack caught us.”
A very entertaining race after it had looked for a long time that it might just be fought out amongst the breakaway, and it was definitely a worthy 100th edition of the famous race.
