CYCLING

Daily Diary: Joe Cooper talks Tour de Korea – Stage 6

By Aaron S Lee

Wippert wins while Bevin takes third to cut into Ewan’s lead, and New Zealand road race champion Joe Cooper tells NZ Bike all about it.

GUNSAN, South Korea—Only four seconds now separates New Zealand’s Patrick Bevin (Avanti Racing Team) with Australia’s Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) in a fierce battle for stages and general classification at Tour de Korea.

After chasing down a two-man break, the peloton prepared for a 35km drag race from the Saemangeum Seawall to Gunsan, but disaster struck Avanti when Aussie Anthony Giacoppo punctured with just 4km remaining.

Missing one-third of the team’s developing sprint train, Bevin was forced to pull the trigger with tired legs from being unprotected in the wind while crossing the bridge over the Yellow Sea.

“We got a bit split up and missed the finish,” said Bevin who finished in third – two slots above Ewan in fifth. “I had to be in the wind a bit and had Caleb marking me and pretty much try to negate the time bonus thing as anyone would in that situation.

“Wouter Wippert (Drapac Pro Cycling) and Shiki Kuroeda (Nippo-Vini Fantini) got the jump on us and we just ran out of road and I ran out of legs, but at the end of the day, I took four seconds back and that’s a win in itself.

“However, if we get a bit cleaner, we can take back control and play the final two stages on our terms which is the best way to take time.”

To get more on the day’s action, NZ Bike caught up with reigning New Zealand road race champion and the 2014 Australian National Road Series winner Joe Cooper to talk about the stage and what it will take for Bevin to take the yellow jersey with just two days remaining.




Joe Cooper’s diary entry: Stage 6 – Gangjin - Gunsan, 193.7km
As soon as the flag dropped, we were not on the ball and Orica-GreenEdge managed to put a man in a pretty sizeable group, and for the first 10km it was panic stations. We probably spent more than one or two biscuits trying to actually get ourselves back to the front of the race and go for a reset.

Once we did that two guys got away, which was perfect for us because it was nice and small and we knew GreenEdge would have to ride that back the whole day.

The crosswind across the seawall was probably the strongest wind we had all week. There were definitely a lot of tired riders that were seemingly going backwards at times and it was again a reduced bunch kick again.

The heat was the hottest it’s been all week, and our sports director Andrew Christie-Johnston said it got up to 36C in the car at some point, and every 10 or so kilometres we were telling Mitch [Lovelock-Fay] to get us ice and water to pour on ourselves.  Until we got to the coast the inland was acting like a heater.

Once we got to the bridge in the closing kilometres, the pace was pretty fast and the wind was coming from the left to right, and we were all just hugging the right-hand side of the road.

In the final 3km I had to get back into the race myself. I don’t know if I was doing the right thing or not, but I needed to keep riding to be the third man for the team’s classification standings, which we still hold a three-second lead over Japan’s Bridgestone Anchor Cycling Team. At the time, my teammate Anthony Giacoppo got a flat with about 4km to go, but we were all unaware.

Ultimately, our sprinter Patrick Bevin finished third behind Shiki Kuroeda (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and winner Wouter Wippert (Drapac Pro Cycling). With the third-place finish – two spots ahead of race leader Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) – we’ve halved the gap to Ewan (+0.04) and there are two more chances to get that time back.

From now on it’s all going to be for Paddy and we know that. We just need to make the right decisions on the road now to achieve those goals, and we need this win as much as anyone. It’s literally going to be helter skelter to the end of the race on Sunday really.

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



Tomorrow’s entry: Stage 7 – Gunsan - Daejeon, 145.8
Stage 6 results (top 5)
1.    Wouter Wippert (Drapac Pro Cycling)                           4:31:30
2.    Shiki Kuroeda (Nippo-Vini Fantini)                                   -
3.    Patrick Bevan (Avanti Racing Team)                               -
4.    Joon Yong Seo (KSPO)                                                   -
5.    Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge)                                      -

General classification (top 5)
1.    Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge)                                             25:14:36
2.    Patrick Bevin (Avanti Racing Team)                                       +00.04
3.    Adam Blythe (Orica-GreenEdge)                                            +00.33
4.    Ha Jeon Jung (Seoul Cycling Team)                                      +00.38
5.    Richard Handley (JLT Condor)                                                -

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