Today’s route seems quite demanding as the riders will pass 8 times the Willunga Hill. Evans seems to have a nice chance to defend his title. Gerrans, Rogers, Walker and Lowe should also be mentioned on the favorites list. Davis and Goss might have a chance as well since it’s a quite a long way between the last pass on Willunga and the finish like
No one was able to break away from the pack even though O’Grady had a few attempts. At the 5th pass on Willunga there were around 15 riders left in the leading group. All the favorites were there, but suddenly Thuaux and Gerrans lost the contact with the group. A few moments later, Goss was also left behind leaving Davis the main favorite in case it’s going to be a sprint between the favorites
At the beginning of the last lap, Lowe attacked from the leading group and manage to make a nice gap between him and the others.
But on the last pass on Willunga, he was caught by a group with Evans, Rogers, McGee, Davis, and Hansen and Gerrans, who managed to get back in the leading group after a few laps ago he was left behind. Sulzberger, Ford and Docker weren’t too far either
The last 3 managed to join the leading group on the downhill. But as soon as they reached the flat section we had the first real attacks from the favorites. Rogers made the first move, with Walker and Davis being the only riders that were able to follow him
Rogers tried to get rid of Davis as the American Suzuki rider would have clearly been the favorite in a sprint but Davis managed to follow him. It came down to a sprint between Rogers, Davis and Walker but Davis had no problems going away from the other 2
Alan Davis is the new Aussie Champion! Rogers took the second place in front of Walker, while behind them Evans sprinted for the 4th place in the chasing group
Ben Day was one of the early starters today and he lead the race for an while, after finishing the race in 1 hour 7 minutes and 59 seconds
The first rider who beat his time was his team – mate, Miles Olman, who was more than 1 minute faster than him
On paper, Dempster was the strongest Irn Bru rider. He managed to beat Day’s time for only a few seconds, but took only a provisional second place behind Olman
The trio from Irn Bru finished the race, now it’s time to see the duo from La Gazzetta. Ford was the first one to start and he took the provisional lead, beating Olman’s time with only 11 seconds
Rogers won it last year and he is the big favorite to win it again. And he destroyed everyone else today as he took he was 1 minute and 42 seconds faster than his team – mate, Michael Ford
Cadel Evans was one of the last riders to start the race. He was the last rider that could have stopped Rogers, but he lost more than 2 minutes to the La Gazzetta rider, who defends his title. Still that time was enough for Evans to take the 4th place
