After two flat crits, it's now time for the annual hilly parcours through Portarlington. No uphill finish, but the steep climb about 5km to the line should still see only the best challenging for the win.
The best puncheurs around: Nathan Haas (who already won a Bay crit in Portarlington two years back), Calvin Watson, George Bennett, Ian Bibby, Yusuke Hatanaka, Matthew Lloyd and a few more riders, who should be a factor today.
And of course the sprinters may try to steal points through a breakaway attempt:
Matthews (Compal) and Scully (Xero) as two prominent names going clear, accompanied by Will Clarke, David Tanner and Haijun Ma!
Let's keep it short though: the breakaway had no chance against the peloton and was reeled in prior to the 10km mark. Two climbs left and the first favorite went on the attack just then:
Haas (Jayco'z) with his first attempt, Hatanaka (Japan) and Othman (Malaysia) follow immediately!
The trio opens up a 21" gap on the pack..
A less action packed final climb then: while teams like Great Britain (for Bibby) and NZL (for Bennett) chased hard, we didn't see further attacks with now less than 5km left.
Haas however went for another acceleration and managed to go clear from Othman/Hatanaka as he now enters the descent to the finish!
Bennett with something like an attack at the front of the chasing bunch, but the gap on the leading trio remains at around 30 seconds..
And yes, this gap is too big. It will be a fight between the leading group, where Haas holds on to a small gap with now less than a kilometre to go!
Othman and Hatanaka kicking off their sprint now, while Haas seems to suffer from his earlier efforts to drop the duo..
He's sprinting now, too, but Othman is catching up with the line approaching! Hatanaka still behind the duo..
Will it be the first Bay-win ever for Jayco'z Cycling?
No! Instead, it's the next (third) former Oz-professional taking a win this year: Othman goes for a quite comfortable victory ahead of Haas and Hatanaka! A fantastic day for the Malaysian, who began his professional career at Oz Cycling in 2012.
A bunch sprint will decide over the further positions..
William Ford finishes 4th ahead of Thwaites, Tennant, Dempster, Tanner, Faiers and young gun Dion Smith! A strong showing from Ford in particular. Chen (12th) closely misses out on points, same goes for top-favorites like Bibby (13th). Surely some folks had hoped for a little bit more action once this strong trio went clear from the pack.
Unlucky Haas already finished 2nd in this crit last year, by the way. And Jayco'z is still waiting for a first victory at the Bay.
Muhamad Adiq Othman
Nathan Haas
Yusuke Hatanaka
Scott Thwaites
Dion Smith
Libin Chen
Lahcen Saber
