Jack Bobridge with a 90km-solo-win at Nedbank Cycle Classic!

It has been a great start into this week for Oz Cycling with Baden Cooke's 2nd and 5th in both Mumbai Cyclothons.. but it's getting even better now: Jack Bobridge took a great win at Nedbank Cycle Classic in Africa! The race was supposed to be unpredictable with only 8 teams (4 CT, 4 Div2) participating, but Bobridge was not expected to be one of the top-favourites here. "We hoped for a decent result in Africa. With such a startlist, it was maybe one of our biggest chances for a good result in a hilly classic", said teammanger T.S. Moha: "But a win? No, we didn't even dream about it!"


Bobridge pulls clear from the pack with 94km remaining

A first breakaway group (with Oz-rider Glenn O'Shea) had been caught early in the race and with 94km to go, Jack Bobridge pulled clear from the peloton to go solo. "It was a surprising move, that's for sure", said T.S. Moha: "Bobo was our biggest hope here and 90km of solo is tough racing."

But although a 2nd group with top-favourited teams like Rapha-Condor or Bianchi chased hard with Bobridge growing his lead to 5 minutes, he could defend his lead until finish! "An awesome effort. We're proud of what Jack did! He's a good timetrialist, we know that. Today he proved to be a real leader for Oz Cycling, too!"


Bobridge celebrates the Oz's 2nd victory this year

Result:

1	Jack Bobridge	Oz Cycling Project	4h34'32
2	Alex Dowsett	Rapha Condor - Qhubeka	+ 1'45
3	Dimitri Claeys	Team Bianchi	s.t.
4	Frantisek Rabon	Team Bianchi	+ 3'04
5	Ivan Rovny	T.CS Bank - OJSC	s.t.
...
14	Shaun Lewis	Oz Cycling Project	+ 7'23

Our team is currently in South Africa, participating at one of our target-races Tour of South Africa! We decided to send our talents down to Africa and hoped for some decent breakaway-action by Oz Cycling. In all of the three stages so far, an Oz-rider made it into an escaping group and today, in 3rd stage, Aaron Gate managed to finish 2nd out of such a breakaway! "That's a great day for me", said Gate. Rapha Condor's Rob Partridge, his break-companion today, was simply stronger than Gate and had a better position in final sprint as well.. The peloton let this two-men-break surprisingly gain 3 minutes in the end and so Partridge takes a comfortable GC-lead.. Gate is 2nd in GC (+ 1'35), but the GC-favourites like Mori, Bellis or Monfort are close behind him.



GC after Stage 3:

1	Rob Partridge	Rapha Condor - Qhubeka	12h05'48
2	Aaron Gate	Oz Cycling Project	+ 1'35
3	Manuele Mori	Jayco - Red Bull	+ 1'46
4	Jonathan Bellis	Rapha Condor - Qhubeka	+ 2'21
5	Maxime Monfort	Team Bianchi	+ 2'45

Smalltalks: Luke, how do you feel today?

LD: I feel very good, somehow. I can't even give you a special reason, but it's one of my best days so far this year.

ST: No clue?

LD: No clue!

ST: So, obviously you're feeling comfortable at your new team, Oz Cycling?! You're supposed to be one of the team's future hopes. Do you feel the pressure?

LD: No, I don't. I will work as hard as I can this year. I will ride a lot of races, that's great. The pressure's on George Bennett (laughs).. No, just kidding. I'm sorry, but I feel so good, that I had to joke around.

ST: No problem at all. Thank you very much for this "small talk"!

[img-l]https://www.sportsmalaysia.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/tourdetaiwan.gif[/img-l] Oz Cycling Project is ready for the first edition of Tour of Taiwan, one of the team's target-races this year.. it's a bright mix of flat, hilly and mountain-stages, so we hope for some good results by both our sprinter Ahmad Haidar Anuawar and climbers Shaun Lewis or Muradjan Khalmuratov!

Thanks to a rather weak startlist, Oz Cycling had some hopes to finish well in the 10 stages of Tour de Taiwan. And in the end, we can be happy with the results we got! William Ford proved his fighting-skills and finished 3rd Overall. A great effort by him and the whole Oz-team, which suffered the "GC-loss" of our best climbers Lewis, Khalmuratov and Thuaux!


Adrian Laidler (3rd) and William Ford (5th) had a good start into the race and made it two in Top-5 for Oz in the short prologue.. a promising start, although we missed a stage-win very close..


Our young gun King Lok Cheung slipped into yellow jersey for one day! It's the first time ever to see an Oz-rider in yellow, so it's worth to mention.. thanks to his breakaway in 2nd stage, where he went for all Intermediate Sprints, he took the race-lead..


We couldn't defend the lead in 3rd stage and things got bad, when Muradjan Khalmuratov crashed on the slick road! Like Shaun Lewis before (and Philip Thuaux later), Oz Cycling's most promising climber fell out of GC-competition.. all we were hoping for was a succesful break..


And William Ford found himself within such a break! He finished 5th once again, but more important: the break was strong enough to defend a decent gap, that made Ford jump onto GC's 3rd with a couple of minutes ahead of the favourites..


Oz Cycling was quite active in leading the peloton on further days.. in order to protect Ford's podium, for sure! We can't say, that we were too good at chasing the escapees, but we tried..


..and thanks to a huge fight in final stage, William Ford managed to defend his podium! He even attacked late in the stage in order to protect as many time as possible and finished 24th... Mikayil Krasnoperov (Emu) took the overall victory thanks to a strong performance on final climb.

Final GC:

1	Mikayil Krasnoperov	Emu Export	26h50'04
2	Gustavo Veloso	Jayco - Red Bull	+ 40
3	William Ford	Oz Cycling Project	+ 2'06
4	Dainius Kairelis	Emu Export	+ 2'49
5	Romain Sicard	Focused Cycling	+ 3'27
6	Matteo Carrara	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	+ 3'30
7	John Gadret	Jayco - Red Bull	+ 3'33
8	Sylvain Calzati	Jayco - Red Bull	+ 3'42
9	Nick Kinney	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	+ 3'49
10	Daniel Moreno	Jayco - Red Bull	+ 4'14

Oz Cycling Project brought in some decent results in both Tour of Czech Republic and Tour of the Battenkill: our Co-Captain Jack Bobridge, suprising winner of Nedbank Cycle Classic earlier this season, proved to be in shape and finished 6th overall in Czech Republic, adding the white jersey for best Young Rider, as well! Oz's sprinter Baden Cooke added a 5th place in 2nd stage.. Teammanger T.S. Moha was happy: "Jack did really well! He was in trouble in final stage, but he fought back to secure his 6th place. We hadn't expected a Top-10 in GC, so we have a big reason to smile!"


The crucial moment for Bobridge - he fights back on final climb!

Our young "Kiwi" Aaron Gate finished 6th in American one-day-classic Tour of the Battenkill! Gate was one of the first within the eventual succesful breakaway, which grew to 10 riders with the race going on.. T.S. Moha: "We knew, there could be a chance for a bigger breakaway group here.. and Aaron did very well to find the right moment to build this group! He also did well in the final sprint and we won't complain about him missing the Top-5!"


Aaron Gate, Ben Jacques-Maynes and Nicola D'Andrea were the first of the 10 escapees..

Oz Cycling had high hopes in Baden Cooke to prove his speed in Pologne's flat stages. The start looked promising, when Cooke finished 4th in first stage and Oz's young guns like Matthews showed themselves in several breakaways.. on third day, Cooke made the podium by finishing 3rd behind Alejandro Borrajo (UniCredit) and Claudio Corioni (Venchi). "A close one. I'm feeling fine and will be back for more", said Baden later. Unfortunatelly he didn't come back for more, as he missed a split of the peloton in final stage. "At least we grabbed some points here, maybe Baden will shine in India [Tour de Delhi] once again", said team manager T.S. Moha.

Cooke finishes 3rd in 3rd stage.. Oz's best in final GC was George Bennett as 72nd, Cooke finished 9th in Points ranking..