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Stage 10, Sydney Criterium (Coogee Beach), 36 kmsResults and Report |
Although there was a distinct lack of brown coloured jerseys to cheer for in the Sydney Coogee Beach criterium (a reference to the old Pacific Power shirts), there was plenty of excitement in the racing to keep the large, boisterous crowd amused. The circuit is a "hot-dog" style course - straight up and down the beachfront with a U-turn at each end, and a rise up to the finish. Although courses like these don't often lead to successful breakaways, the spectators can at least see the riders for the whole race. Once again out of the blocks it was Festina's Marcel Wüst (Ger) who led the field out around the first few tight turns. He has had six days of the Classic to get his legs working again, so we were expecting big things of him tonight. First though, he had to survive the best part of an hour racing against a whole lot of riders who certainly had got their legs in good working order. Attack after attack went during the race, primarily by teams going for the sprint primes that were on offer. One team that was riding particularly well was MROZ Poland, who managed to put one or two in almost every break, forcing the Slovenian and Festina teams to chase. They were also doing an excellent job of controlling the bunch around the corners through judicious use of the brakes. With 5 laps to go, there was a breakaway containing "handslinger" Dan Smith (UK, Sportscover), Tilo Schuler (Ger, Bosch), Piotr Wadecki (Pol, MROZ), Julian Winn (UK, Dupont) and Jan Hordijk (Ned, Websdale). The six had a very useful lead coming into the last lap, and it would require a big effort from the bunch to haul them in. This was initiated primarily by Scott Sunderland (QANTAS One World) who all but closed the gap before the final U-turn. The sub 500-meter, uphill sprint is always somewhat of a lottery because if you go too early, the hill gets you at the end. However as it turned out, Festina's Marcel Wüst had finally found his legs, leading out quite early to hold off German Torsten Wilhelms (Bosch) and the not-completely dead Jan Hordijk (Websdale). It was a well timed victory for Wüst, who had said last Saturday that he'd need at least four days to get over his jetlag. He certainly picked a fine event to do so, and we might see him up there in the final few criteriums. The overall classification is still being lead by Slovenian Gorazd Stangelj, who rides for the Italian 2nd division team, Mobilvetta-Northwave and is certainly in the box seat coming in to tomorrow's hilliest stage - 106 km from Woolongong to Nowra. There are two category one climbs along the route and local boy Jonathon Hall will be keen to take advantage of his experience in those hills. Can the Aussies take it to the Poles and Slovenians on the "queen stage" of the tour? You can't count out Max van Heeswijk either. For Complete Results
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