Well Huon are going for this one then... Earle clear favorite, but can he shake off last seasons near-miss? You'd have to think so. But Haig will be biting to take that leader role from him.
O'Brien on a high right now following Baw Baw and has to be watched. But Budget with a great double of Anderson and Cupitt.
Great startlist for race one, lets bring it on!
@all: Thank you very much for the kind words on the preview(s)! That is really appreciated, I have to say
Earle seems to be the clear favorite for you guys, for obvious reasons. Let's see if he can do better than last year, where teammate Haig was simply stronger more than once
@Manx: Your thoughts are just spot on, once again. Some interesting questions we have here and yes, a nice startlist for the opening event.
Mersey Valley Tour (Stage 1, ITT, 26km)
The opening timetrial to one of the toughest stage-races in the NRS 2014 may already lead to some decisive gaps between the top-favorites. A flat but challenging 25km timetrial kicks off the NRS and a top-quality startlist awaits the spectators!
Harry Carpenter (Euride) may have to support his new captain O'Brien in the further two stages, but he's definitely aiming for a stage-win today:
and he delivers, setting a first notable best time - 35'19"!
Teammate Mark O'Brien did well, too: the climber lost only 18" on Carpenter, which will bring him a Top-20 finish today!
Jack Haig (Huon) is known as a similar strong timetrial specialist and he is likely to take the team's leader-role if he beats teammte Earle by a decent gap:
it ain't his best day though, but neither a bad one - Haig finishes 7" behind Carpenter as provisional 7th. That's better than Earle's effort, but the Tasmanian finished only 11" behind Haig - just like O'Brien. So both should have a good shot at the GC if nothing goes seriously wrong today!
And here comes a Tasmanian born: Cameron Wurf (Subway) may struggle in tomorrow's quite mountainous queen stage, but he's not quite chanceless though.
His performance today will definitely help him, as he sets a new BT! 35'17"! That's a quite surprising time, his "home boost" paid off!
Samuel Horgan (Budget) is another top-favorite for today's timetrial and also known as a decent puncheur, while not amongst the very best.
The Kiwi easily beats Wurf for an impressive new BT: 34'55", beating the Tasmanian by 22 seconds!
Horgan looked like the certain winner here, but there comes another specialist - Mark Jamieson (Target Trek)!
The veteran seems to have a "special day" and beats Horgan by another 3" for the stage-win!
No one else could compete with those two, so Jamieson secures a great victory for his new team Target Trek!
Horgan as today's 2nd may now even take Budget's leader role as he finished more than 50" ahead of the team's best climbers Williams, Cupitt and also Oceanian Timetrial-champion Anderson!
Neil Van der Ploeg finishes as good 7th, 31" behind Jamieson and 3" ahead of Haig. Semple (12th), Earle (17th), O'Brien (18th) all finished within 10 seconds, losing only a few seconds on VdP or Haig.
So today's "losers" may be Budget's climbing trio, which lost about 20 seconds on Haig and 10 on Earle/O'Brien..
Biggest disappointment: TT-specialist Joe Cooper (Huon), who lost 35" as 11th today. Definitely not his best day, to say so.
Great report. NvP with a strong start, but I think he'll get top 5 at best. It seems like its going to be good racing from here on out with Earle and co
@Ian: VdP did his best to be in a good position, yes. And Earle neck to neck with O'Brien - we couldn't have asked for a better result
@baia: You better talk to them, they need to deliver on 2nd day!
@sutty: A close loss, tough one for Horgan. But he gained some valuable seconds on the top-favorites!
@aidanvn: Thanks for the kind words on the report! You may be right about VdP and you now can check the 2nd stage's report
Mersey Valley Tour (Stage 2, 93km)
The queen stage of the Mersey Valley Tour features a tough climb up the Cradle Mountain and the top-favorites definitely need to deliver today.
Race-leader Jamieson (Target) should struggle here, but GC's 2nd Horgan (Budget) gained valuable seconds on the best climbers like Haig, Earle or O'Brien in yesterday's ITT. May he even survive this climb to slip into yellow?
The stage kicked off with the usual business: a 3-men-break went early in the stage and established a decent gap quickly.
But halfway through the race, we see a first notable move: Jai Crawford (GC + 1.23), known as one of the very best climbers, attacked the bunch early and tries to join the breakaway! A tactical move for Haig/Earle? Or a brave effort to fool the other top-teams?
It won't matter anyway, as Crawford didn't manage to catch up to the leading trio! With 33km remaining, the breakaway is still in the lead, but the gap is already down to 1'17"!
Martin (Pure Tasmania), Cameron (Caterpillar) and Stevenson (Jayco) enjoy the beautiful landscape of Tasmania.
But with 10km to go, the breakaway is swallowed by the bunch, where Target Trek and also Jayco looked in control of today's race.
And now for the more serious attempts:
Flakemore (Pure Tasmania) and
Lapthorne (Drapac)
try to escape! Lapthorne (GC + 1.21) lost 40-50 seconds on the top-favorites yesterday and needs to put some early pressure!
It's an empty-handed try though and with 5km remaining, we're already entering the tough finish climb and here goes a top-favorite:
Earle (Huon) jumps away early in the climb!
He's followed by young gun Gassner (Veneziano) and also Lapthorne gives it a second try!
The race is on and of course more riders (need to) follow this maybe decisive moves:
Norris (Jayco) and
Cupitt (Budget)
attacked the pack a few moment later! With only less than 3km remaining, Earle looks dominating though, leading the race solo by already 40" on now solo-chasing Lapthorne!
And here goes O'Brien (Euride), finally! He's followed by GC's 2nd Horgan (Budget) and 3rd Wurf (Subway), who both need to defend about 40" on Earle today!
But did this move by O'Brien come too late? He's already 2 minutes (!) behind solo-leader Earle with 2.3km to go!
And the Tasmanian-based Earle keeps pacing hard, even though he looks totally exhausted with less than 2km remaining!
Anyway, he's now already leading by 48" on Lapthorne and 1'10" on Norris/Cupitt! It looks like he will repeat his win on the Cradle Mountain from 2013..
So let's have a look at who's still in the mix for at least a Top-10 finish today.. Earle already reached the "flamme rouge", but who's behind?
E1/
Earle
E2/
Lapthorne at 0.48
E3/
Norris at 1.10
E4/
Cupitt at 1.20
E5/
Gassner
O'Brien at 2.08
E6/
Horgan
Carpenter at 2.48
E7/
Wurf
Neil Van der Ploeg
Semple
Anderson
Haig at 3.10
Those gaps are already huge and one thing is for sure: defending Mersey-winner Semple will struggle to repeat last year's victory.
Nathan Earle won't even celebrate and fights til the end! A dominating effort from the Tasmanian, who takes out the Tour's queen stage for the second time!
Darren Lapthorne crosses the line 1'11" later! He will be satisfied nevertheless, especially as his teammate Matthew Clark was expected to go for the GC-win here.
Lachlan Norris finishes as good 3rd ahead of Michael Cupitt, losing more than one and half minutes.
O'Brien as 5th is already 2'24" in arrears! That's something! A surprising strong Gassner comes in as 6th.
Earle is in perfect position to finally grab a GC-win: he leads by 1'51" on Lapthorne and 2'07" on Norris with only one hilly stage left.
Cupitt, O'Brien and Horgan may try to attack the podium tomorrow.
Semple (+ 3.23) as 7th, Carpenter, Van der Ploeg and Gassner round up the Top-10, with Haig (11th), Wurf (12th) and Anderson (14th) looking like the last remaining contenders for the points-places (1-10).
@all: Thanks for the feedback! Well, Earle simply dominated this time and yes, just like baia said - O'Brien (and others) reacted too late. Looks like Earle is top-motivated in "his" Tasmania
Mersey Valley Tour (Stage 3, 113km)
A second hilly stages concludes the Mersey Valley Tour and even though it ain't looking as tough as yesterday's stage, there's still plenty of ascending kilometres.
Nathan Earle (Huon-Genesys) took the GC-lead on Cradle Mountain in style, crushing the opponents by more than a minute (at least) and with almost two minutes on GC's Lapthorne (Drapac), the Tasmanian-based looks unbeatable here on home soil.
Or will we see him losing out on the GC like he did last year, where he lost more than a minute on Adam Semple in this final stage from Sheffield to Sheffield?
An early 5-men-breakaway group is joined by 2 more riders for the break of the day, we're already entering the second half of the stage and the escapees lead by 2'50" on the now chasing bunch. Most notable names in the break:
Britten (search2)
Bonello (GPM, as best placed in GC with + 5.58)
Rendall (African Wildlife) and
Dever (Target Trek)
Last season, this final stage was won by Taylor (GPM) out of a breakaway and those seven will hope for a similar scenario this year.
But the more important question is, if we will see the top-favorites attacking Earle or at least the podium. And yes, we do:
Semple (Satalyst) attacks with 15km to go!
He's followed by
Earle
Haig (Huon) and
Anderson (Budget)!
Semple (7th in GC with + 3.23) may not aim for the GC-win, but he repeats his winning move from last year! A bit earlier this time, though.
Of course the peloton knows of the dangerous moves there and teams like Drapac (for GC's 2nd Lapthorne) and Jayco (for 3rd Norris) immediately start chasing this group!
It's therefore a tough challenge for group Semple/Earle and the bunch is only 21" in arrears with 9km remaining.
So here we go with another attack:
Semple goes again 6km before finish with Anderson and Haig jumping behind quickly!
Race-leader Earle looks in trouble, he can't counter this second attack by Semple!
It's still no real threat for Earle, as the gap remains rather small. We're already 3km before finish and while Earle stays in the heavily reduced bunch, O'Brien (Euride) tries to join group Semple!
In the meantime, the early breakaway is also caught by the peloton, except of Bonello, who leads solo by more than a minute:
E1 (1)/ Bonello
E2 (3)/ Semple, Anderson, Haig at 1.16
E3 (1)/ O'Brien at 1.28
E4 (25)/ Earle, Cupitt, Wurf, Lapthorne, Van der Ploeg at 1.41
P (61)/ Horgan (GC's 6th), Williams, Jamieson at 2.20
So Bonello is going to repeat his team's stage-victory from last year, but will we see changes in the Top-10? At least Horgan looks in trouble, being dropped by the bigger group of favorites!
Group Semple/Anderson/O'Brien couldn't hold on to their gap and is swallowed by the big chasing group with Earle close before finish!
Of course Haig wouldn't help pulling Semple or Earle to the line, so we will see a group of 27 riders finishing together. The next group with GC's 6th Horgan is still a minute behind, so this may be today's biggest news..
..except of this great stage-win for Daniel Bonello (GPM)!
He wins the same stage as his teammate Josh Taylor in 2013, this seems to be a special place for GPM. Congrats!
Donnelly (Huon) and Anderson (Budget) complete the podium, finishing 46" behind Bonello, leading a bunch of GC-contenders.
So Huon and Earle succesfully defended the comfortable GC-lead for the Tasmanian, who will finally win a stage-race now!
Budget's Sam Horgan missed the crucial split though and the former 2nd in GC here eventually finishes 1'04" behind group Earle and will lose some ground in the GC.
It's all "Tasmanian" today - the Tasmanian based team Huon-Genesys celebrates a dominating win for Tasmanian based Nathan Earle, who put up an impressive performance here in.. Tasmania.
Lapthorne as 2nd and Norris as 3rd will be happy with their results, finishing a few seconds ahead of Cupitt and top-favorite O'Brien, who definitely attacked far too late in yesterday's queen stage!
Semple, Carpenter (who completes a nice result for Euride Racing), Neil Van der Ploeg and Haig all make a jump in GC thanks to Horgan losing this minute today. The Kiwi still finishes 10th in GC and grabs a point for the rankings.
Biggest dissapointments: comebacker Will Walker (23rd) and especially climbing ace Matt Clark (27th) couldn't deliver for Drapac, which will be more than happy with Lapthorne's performance though.
Next stop in the NRS: Perth! The new stage race in Western Australia features two stages on Rottnest Island.. "local hero" Adam Semple should be top-motivated.
Huon just all over those two road stages! Dominant from Earle as he clearly shakes away 2013. Tasmanian, in Tasmania for Tasmania.
Bring on the next event, which i expect to be closer...
I am so looking forward to the next race with the new shirts (big mystery for everyone not involved)!!!
I might even get another one or two done tomorrow...
Well, Earle dominating should not be surprise. Lapthorne did nice job by finishing in front of Norris , not expected (at least not for me). O' Brien disappointed a bit , but it's okay , maybe it's only form.
@Manx: Yap, Huon really proved their strength this time, especially Budget needs to fight back now. The next event will hopefully closer as for the GC-win, yes!
@aidanvn: Well, if Earle continues like that, he will be unbeatable, but thanks to the new race-planning in this story, he won't ride every race anyway But it's a strong showing after a quite invisible Oceania Road Champs for him!
@miggi: That would be great news! And I will put up a news-update for this, so others will see the new shirts soon!
@admirschleck: Agree about Earle and also Lapthorne finished quite well ahead of better climbers. O'Brien at least made the Top-5, but needs to do better in his further appearances!
Thanks all for following! I will come back with some news and the first rankings later today and will try to get the next event started asap!
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg){kind=small}
.. it´s going to be a great race..
But it's a strong showing after a quite invisible Oceania Road Champs for him!
