CYCLING

Daily Diary: Joe Cooper talks Tour de Korea Stage 4

By Aaron S Lee

Patrick Bevin upsets Caleb Ewan and inches closer to general classification, while Joe Cooper shares his thoughts with NZ Bike.

YEOSU, South Korea—The third time was the charm for New Zealand’s Patrick Bevin (Avanti Racing Team) when he out-sprinted Australian ‘Boy Wonder’ Caleb Ewan in the final bunch sprint of the 207km stage 4 from Muju to Yeosu on Wednesday.

With the win, the 24-year-old North Island native has successfully shaken off a nasty spill on the opening stage, which involved two other Avanti teammates, along with two Orica-GreenEdge riders – including Ewan.

Currently Bevin sits just four seconds behind the 20-year-old Ewan on general classification, with four days remaining.



NZ Bike caught up with reigning New Zealand road race champion and the 2014 Australian National Road Series winner Joe Cooper to talk about his teammates’ success and how much he enjoys his role in helping Bevin reach the final podium.



Joe Cooper’s diary entry: Stage 4 – Muju - Yeosu, 207km
Each night we have a solid hour long debrief and planning session. We go through every single thing that possibly could go wrong and there are still hundreds and hundreds of other things that can go wrong in a race. We try to cover most bases, and I always have an A, B, C and D plan.

On paper, today was the longest stage and it was really hot and humid so we had to keep the boys iced up and I had to go back every 20km to get bottles and that becomes a job in itself really.

The break got out and I think it had a maximum of eight minutes, but on a day like today you could have given them 10 and still got it back. There was only two or three guys at any stage working on the front of the peloton and if need be there was always another 98 riders to take a turn really.

All the main sprinters were in the peloton and everyone here wants as many opportunities at the finish as they can. For us, we are here to go for the win, which we got today, but there is still four more stages to go and we would like another four stage wins in the bank.

Looking back on the day, I realise to get a victory anywhere in the world is great, but we are up against some pretty serious competition here. In fact, compared to our competition we are running on the smell of an oily rag, but I guess the fumes are pretty potent.

While this race does not feature the type of courses that best suit me, I’m more than happy to see the team do well. We still have a couple of things we want to achieve in this tour – such as hold on to the teams classification lead – and hopefully we are doing an attractive style of racing to get sponsors on board.

In the meantime, stay tuned...
-Joe Cooper



Tomorrow’s entry: Stage 5 – Yeosu - Gangjin, 175km
Stage 4 results (top 5)
1.    Patrick Bevin (Avanti Racing Team)                           5:19:55       
2.    Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge)                                 -
3.    Adam Blythe (Orica-GreenEdge)                                -
4.    Joon Young Seo (KSPO)                                            -
5.    Wouter Wippert (Drapac Pro Cycling)                         -

General classification (top 5)
1.    Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge)                                         16:34:20
2.    Patrick Bevin (Avanti Racing Team)                                    +00.04
3.    Adam Blythe (Orica-GreenEdge)                                        +00.22
4.    Anthony Giacoppo (Avanti Racing Team)                           +00.26
5.    Ok Cheol Kim (Seoul Cycling Team)                                   -

Aaron S. Lee is a cycling and triathlon columnist for Eurosport and a guest contributor to NZ Bike Magazine. Image Credit: Daebong Kim