Canberra Tour - NE

ACT, Australia, May 11-13, 2001

Prologue - May 11: Parkes Way Time Trial, 6.1km

Snorrason, Bates take first leads

Melbournian Kristjan Snorrason took victory today in the opening prologue of the 19th Canberra Tour. Snorrason, riding his specialist (orange) time trial bike, won by two seconds ahead of Peter Milostic (the 1999 Tour Winner) and three seconds clear of Geoffery Cook.

The best placed Canberrans were Stuart Bardsley in seventh and Denis Mungoven in ninth. Bardsley, a former wearer of the yellow jersey in the Canberra Tour, has been concentrating more on Triathlon of late, however showed today that time trialling in Triathlons has not hindered his speed. Mungoven has been sick for much of the week and did not finish as strongly as he would have liked, however is still in a good position in the top 10, in what is a long hard race.

I spoke with Kristjan Snorrason after the race and he said that "Milostic, Pell and Robert Crowe are definitely the ones to watch in tomorrow's stage." Snorrason has two other riders in his team who will work to try and get him in contention for the sprint, a discipline which Snorrason has mastered to perfection, to be one of the sharpest road sprinters in the country. A 20 second time bonus awaits for the stage win, so there will be keen competition amongst the sprinters, especially from Baden Burke of Canberra, who is 30 seconds down after the time trial.

In the women's race Natalie Bates borrowed her sister's Time Trial bike to gain as much advantage as possible in the opening prologue and this paid huge dividends when she won by a massive 21 seconds from sister Kate and 22 seconds ahead of Liz Young.

Natalie said after the race that "this was what I wanted to do and has put me in an ideal position for tomorrow and the rest of the race".

Results — Men

1 Kristjan Snorrason                     7.23
2 Peter Milostic                         0.02
3 Geoffery Cook                          0.03
4 Russel Van Hout                        0.06
5 David Pell                             0.07
6 Tom Brook                              0.11
7 Stuart Bardsley (ACT)                  0.16
8 Glenn Stojanow                         0.16
9 Denis Mungoven (ACT)                   0.17
10 Donovan Herbert                       0.23

Results — Women

1 Natalie Bates                          8.09
2 Kate Bates                             0.21
3 Liz Young                              0.22
4 Naomi Williams                         0.24
5 Amy Safe                               0.31
6 Helen Kelly                            0.33
7 Olivia Gollan                          0.34
8 Erin Philp                             0.44
9 Jeanette Schwartz                      0.44
10 Jessica Amy                           0.48