CYCLING

Bevin talks Tour Down Under - Stage 1

By Aaron S Lee

ADELAIDE—North Island’s Patrick Bevin made his WorldTour debut when the 24-year-old Cannondale Pro Cycling neo-pro rolled to the start of the opening stage of the 2016 Santos Tour Down Under on Tuesday, 19 January, in South Australia.

It was a big day for the recently crowned New Zealand time trial champion and his teammate and fellow WorldTour rookie Wouter Wippert claimed second, but even bigger for rival Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) who won his sixth race of the season, including the Australian criterium championship, the People’s Choice Classic and stage 1.
 

Neither Bevin nor Wippert are strangers to Ewan, after both took stages from the Aussie sprinting sensation at the Tour of Korea last June – a race Ewan would ultimately win.

However today, Ewan proved to be the man as the 21-year-old from New South Wales easily sprinted to victory in a bunch kick on the 130.8-kilometre course starting in Prospect and ending in Lyndoch. Ewan overpowered compatriot Mark Renshaw (Team Dimension Data), Dutchman Wouter Wippert (Cannondale Pro Cycling), Slovenian Marko Kump (Lampre-Merida) and Briton’s Adam Blythe (Tinkoff-Saxo) – a teammate of Ewan last year at GreenEdge.

Ewan slips into the ochre leaders jersey with a four-second lead over Renshaw and AG2R’s Alexis Gougeard after claiming both sprint bonuses. Wippert is six seconds down in fourth.

Australian Sean Lake (Team UniSA-Australia), who recently finished with a bronze medal in the national time trial titles, claims the mountains classification jersey and slips into the top 5 on general classification after a gutsy final break before being caught by the bunch with 3km to go.

Along with Wippert, joining Bevin are teammates Simon Clarke (AUS), Michael Woods (USA), Moreno Moser (ITA), Ruben Zepuntke (GER) and Alberto Bettiol (ITA).

NZ Bike caught up with Bevin after the stage to get his thoughts on the race and kicking off his rookie WorldTour season in Cannondale colours.
 

Bevin’s diary entry: Stage 1 – Prospect – Lyndoch, 130.8km
I’m a bit lucky at the moment as I caught a bug on the way over here from New Zealand and was immediately isolated and given my own room – which is great on its own. But when I arrived the weather was mild and allowed me to train during recovery without making it worse. Now I feel no effects whatsoever, but still have my own room.

The first outing was the People’s Choice Classic crit on Sunday, which was an absolute blast. It’s so nice open up the Tour Down Under and the season with a race like that and the crowd was so in to it and it was amazing.

I’ve been asked a lot on whether or not I noticed any difference in the level of competition after that first race, and it was not until about five laps to go that it kicked in. We were averaging 51km/h on the night, but the last six laps when we were all trying to put a sprinter in position was pretty chaotic.

For my team, it was the first time we were riding together. In some ways it was just another race and other ways it was a massive step up. We were hitting 55km/h in the last 10 kilometres and braking twice in the corners each lap. It was rapid.

 I’ve noticed there is quite a bit of mutual respect in the peloton and wearing the Cannondale colours is certainly a plus. It’s also great to have a guy like Simon Clarke on the team because he is just so experienced and respected. If you have a problem or aren’t sure about something you can just bump into Simon and he’s got you covered.

I know there is a lot of rivalry between the Aussies and Kiwis Down Under, but on an international sporting stage, there’s always a real kinship.

Like I said, we are a brand new unit, so it’s been hard racing to get our sprinter Wouter Wippert to the front, but today we were able to position him for a podium. The team is happy with third and we are only going to get better and keep trying to get him on the top step because he is sprinting really well.

Caleb Ewan is in top form, but a clean run will get us closer than we got the past two races. To beat him, first and foremost you need a clean run.

Right now, Caleb’s in great form, sprinting really well and has a strong team in front of him. If you put those three things together – any guy is hard to beat.

We are still new to the sprint train and it’s not an easy thing to get right straight off the bat, but we are working on it.

In the meantime, we’ll see how the week goes. I’m looking at a couple of stages coming up that may be a bit more selective and that will fall more into my territory if my legs are there.

Until then, stay tuned…
-Patrick Bevin

Tomorrow’s entry: Stage 2 – Unley – Stirling, 132km

Stage 1 results (top 5)
1.    Caleb Ewan, AUS, OricaGreenEdge                                     3h24.13
2.    Mark Renshaw, AUS, Team Dimension Data                        00”
3.    Wouter Wippert, NED, Cannondale Pro Cycling                    00”
4.    Marko Kump, SLO, Lampre-Merida                                      00”
5.    Adam Blythe, GBR, Tinkoff-Saxo                                          00”
 
General classification (top 5)
1.    Caleb Ewan, AUS, OricaGreenEdge                                      00”
2.    Mark Renshaw, AUS, Team Dimension Data                        04”
3.    Alexis Gougeard, FRA, AG2R La Mondiale                            --
4.    Wouter Wippert, NED, Cannondale Pro Cycling                     06”
5.    Sean Lake, AUS, Team UniSA-Australia                                07”
 
Aaron S. Lee is a cycling and triathlon columnist for Eurosport and a guest contributor to NZ Bike Magazine.  Photo credit: Santos Tour Down Under / Regallo.