Adelaide Tour (Stage 3, Flat, 53km)

The Mike Turtur Kermesse concludes this rather short stage-race in and around Adelaide. The criterium features yet another tricky uphill-finish and again we're looking forward to wether the sprinters or the stage-racers will take out the stage.

Yesterday's solo-winner Alex Wohler will hope for a similar result like last year, where the pure sprinters battled for the line honours and Luke Davison took out the final stage without major splits in the bunch.


An early breakaway was pulled back by bunch right in time and we're already in the final 3km!

No splits or attacks by GC-contenders yet, as Euride (Gill/Edmondson) puts up a little train..


The riders enter the finishing stretch, facing a rather "easy" uphill finish:

Gill did a nice leadout for Edmondson, who leads a small group of 3 riders, which established a small gap on the peloton!

Edmondson (Euride), Fetch (Jayco) and Earle (Huon)!


It's actually a decent little gap there, as the three simply dominate this bunch sprint! There's already a 9"-gap, so it may be worth a look at those rider's GC-situation:

Edmondson (GC's 15th, + 0.27)
Earle (GC's 4th, + 0.16)
Fetch (GC's 26th, + 0.35)

So with 6-4-2 bonus seconds to be rewarded today, plus the gap, there's definitely a chance for notable GC-changes today!


Who takes out this final stage in Adelaide?

It's a close one, actually a very close decision between Edmondson and Fetch, with Earle clearly crossing the line as 3rd (2 bonus seconds).. Edmondson raises his arms..


..and celebrates his victory..

..at least he thinks so.. but taking a close look back at the previous picture, one may notice that Fetch had a small advantage..


And yes, it's a "Zabel" for Edmondson! Luke Fetch crossed the line first and celebrates his stage-win on the podium. Bad luck for the Edmondson, but to be fair: it was close.

But where did the peloton finish? The leading three managed to finish with a 10"-gap!


Too less to take the GC-lead from Alex Wohler though. He wins the Adelaide Tour 2014 thanks to a great solo-effort in yesterday's road race. That's also the first GC-win for Budget Forklifts this season and therefore a very special moment.

Nathan Earle jumps onto 2nd in GC thanks to his effort today, losing out on the win by only 4". Definitely a great race for Earle, who takes important points with the absence of O'Brien or Van der Ploeg!

Defending winner Donnelly adds another podium-spot for Huon, while Edmondson at least jumped onto 4th today. No stage-win, but a great GC-result.

Huon with another four riders from 5th to 8th, including important points for Haig as 7th.. Budget's Horgan 9th and today's winner Fetch completes the Top-10.

Preview: The Preston Mountain Classic ain't as tough as the VRS' season opener at Mt Baw Baw, but we are looking forward to a thrilling day anyway. The final climb is rather short, but features slopes up to 12%, so stronger climbers do stand a chance to prove their skills or shape.

It's me again - Rhys. After only scoring one single point in the Victorian Road Series so far, the pressure is now on me to get myself back where I finished in 2013 - the podium. This classic, with the big guns like O'Brien or Earle not being at the start, is one of my biggest targets this year.


The race went well right from the start: my mate Nick Squillari managed to be part of the break of the day and the group actually did quite well, setting the agenda for almost the whole distance!"


Obviously a nice situation for our African Wildlife squad, as we could save some energy in the chase, that was lead by top-favorited teams Charter Mason and Budget Forklifts!

Close before the finishing climb, the early escapees were caught and so it was the perfect time for the favorites to attack:

Crome (Charter Mason)
McCarthy (Budget) and
Gillett (yes, that's me) launched the first attack!


It's a short but tough climb, I can tell you.. A super-strong Crome established a decent gap on the bunch, but I felt good, too! I did my very best to hang on to his speed..


But Sam Crome was simply too good here, taking out a well deserved win ahead of me and Nathan Elliott (Target), who finished 23" behind.

Budget's VRS-leader Josh Prete finished as 5th, so he once again delivered, scoring in all three VRS-events so far! Well done.. Anyway, I'm pretty happy to finish as 2nd, even though it's always a pity to miss a win so close.

Final Results/

1	Sam Crome	Charter Mason / Drapac DT	3h12'34
2	Rhys Gillett	African Wildlife Safaris	s.t.
3	Nathan Elliott	Target Trek Racing Team	+ 23
4	Shaun McCarthy	Budget Forklifts	+ 31
5	Joshua Prete	Budget Forklifts	s.t.
6	Sam Sautelle	Suzuki Bontrager	s.t.
7	Jason Spencer	Charter Mason / Drapac DT	s.t.
8	Nicholas Katsonis	Charter Mason / Drapac DT	+ 55
9	Tim Dodds	Essendon Skoda Cycling Team	s.t.
10	Kevin Love	Essendon Skoda Cycling Team	s.t.

The Adelaide Tour proved to be a great choice for NRS-leader Nathan Earle, as he scored 11 more points thanks to his 2nd place! So in the still "young" rankings, he's already one GC-win ahead of O'Brien, who's more race days left though.. Haig scored a few points, too, and is back on the podium, but it's a close race of course and the next event - the North West Tour - is likely to mix things again.

In the team rankings, it's looking more and more like a battle between Huon, Budget and also Euride.. Drapac and search2 lost some ground, so did Satalyst, so there's already quite a gap for those teams.. Jayco - on the other hand - will be very happy about sitting on 4th in the rankings, this is a huge step forward!

INDIVIDUAL RANKINGS/

Rk	Name	Team	Points
1	Nathan Earle	Huon Salmon - Genesys	35
2	Mark O'Brien	Euride Racing	22
3	Jack Haig	Huon Salmon - Genesys	21
4	Neil Van der Ploeg	search2retain	20
	Jack Anderson	Budget Forklifts	20
6	Adam Semple	Satalyst Giant Racing	18
7	Darren Lapthorne	Drapac Cycling	16
8	Alex Wohler	Budget Forklifts	15
	Joe Cooper	Huon Salmon - Genesys	15
10	Lachlan Norris	Jayco - Honey Shotz	13
	Cameron Bayly	search2retain	13
12	Aaron Donnelly	Huon Salmon - Genesys	12
13	Alexander Morgan	Jayco - Honey Shotz	11
14	Alexander Edmondson	Euride Racing	10
15	Daniel Bonello	GPM Data#3	9
	Harry Carpenter	Euride Racing	9

TEAM RANKINGS/

Rk	Team	Points
1	Huon Salmon - Genesys	60
2	Budget Forklifts	52
3	Euride Racing	46
4	Jayco - Honey Shotz	33
5	Drapac Cycling	32
6	search2retain	30
7	Satalyst Giant Racing	20
8	GPM Data#3	18
9	Target Trek Racing Team	13
10	Pro Team Downunder	11
11	Subway Cycling Team	7
12	African Wildlife Safaris	5
13	Pure Tasmania & Polygon Cycling	4
14	Racing Kangaroos	3
	Downer EDI Mining	3
	SUVelo Racing	3
	Suzuki Bontrager	3
18	Veneziano Blefari	2
	Charter Mason / Drapac DT	2
	Bianchi Lotto Arbitrage	2
21	Data#3 Cisco Racing Team	1
	St George Skoda HP Team	1

North West Tour

Regional New South Wales will get a taste of international cycling when the Subaru Cycling Australia National Road Series (NRS) hits town with the Santos North West Tour from June 19 – 22.

The third edition of the five-stage Tour will take in the rural towns of Narrabri, Coonabarabran and Gunnedah.

The queen stage features a mountaintop finish and is therefore one of the toughest stages in the NRS.. so the climbers, like last Mark O'Brien (who's again going for a hattrick after winning this race in the past two years), will aim for the victory here. Stay tuned for a preview of those favorites.






Mark O'Brien and his Budget team crushed the competition in 2013, thanks to a triple-win in the queen stage with O'Brien, Cupitt and Evans finishing ahead of the remaining favorites! An exciting race it was nevertheless, also due some bad luck for Earle, who crashed on 2nd day and lost all his chances to go for a win..

More impression from 2013/

A Kenyan team made it's debut in the NRS last year..

Both Earle and Haig crashed in last year's edition..

Budget's top-trio dominated the tough climb..

And also Budget's young gun Kerrison took out a sprint-stage!