The last stage of the Santos Tour Down Under had a very exciting finale at the feared Willunga Hill which had to be tackled twice in the last hour of the race. Earlier in the race, a massive break of 26 men got away and one point had over 4 minutes to the bunch but when they entered the final circuit of 2 laps this was already reduced to about 2 minutes as the Mitchelton-Scott team with leader Daryl Impey had to drive the front of the bunch to catch the escapee’s who had Joey Rosskoph (CCC) in their midst, Joey took enough points on the first passage at the top of the hill to secure his KOH jersey and was the virtual leader for most of the race. By that time the lead group had 12 men left and rapidly was losing time. During that chase, even the world champ Mads Petersen took the front for a while to help his teammate Richie reduce the deficit of time!! You don’t see often a world champ doing this. And it worked, as the front group was done and the chasers becoming the front of the race…when that happened Richie went for it and only Matthew Holmes could follow, Matthew biding his time and in the last corner taking Richie for a great win. Richie had done enough and with Daryl to far away, taking the Ochre Leader Jersey. So another win for Lotto Soudal with Matthew Holmes (in one of his first world tours in his career) and another win for Richie on Willunga hill, he now can call his own (7 times winning this stage) Sam Bennet was with the chasing bunch till the last climb but had to let go as he did his work for the week, earning the Deceuninck-Quickstep team some good prize money with 3 podiums including a win!! Now that’s it for me this morning, 6 very early mornings has taken his toll and today back to bread and butter racing with the Lisburn BMX winter series this lunchtime…it never stops and that’s the way I like it…till the next time and thanks for visiting the website (nearly 2000 users this week!!)
