OZ hopes of taking an early grip on the classic ended abruptly with a strong foreign invasion at the weekend. After 3 stages of the 1170.8 km race, OZ riders had done very little - unlike the English Ampol-Caltex team and the US Motorola team, who all shared in success.
Jeremy Hunt (Ampol-Caltex) leads overall by only 1 second from his team-mate John Tanner with Dutchman, Van Heeswijk third at 10 secs.
In dangerously wet conditions, Hunt won the opening 36 km crit at Manly by outsprinting Ireland's Declan Lonergen. With time bonuses included, Hunt had an overall lead of 5 secs on Lonergen, with Van Heeswijk third at 10 seconds.
Heeswijk's win in the second stage to The Entrance from Hornsby (127 km) moved him into second overall. He marked two personal milestone in his victory. First, it was his 7th win for this season as a neo-pro. Second, by claiming his 5th stage win in this race, after taking 4 last year, he became the highest scoring stage winner in the 13 year history of the race.
Despite Van Heeswijk and the strong Motorola team's threat, the Ampol-Caltex team struck back in the afternoon crit (Stage 4) with a convincing win to John Tanner (30 kms crit at The Entrance). The 27 year old Yorkshireman pushed Van Heeswijk out of second place on GC and came within a second of Hunt's GC lead.
Shane Sutton, manager of the English Ampol team said "Its still too early to start thinking about the gc. We are just taking things day by day...racing for the stages and seeing how we are placed overall."
For the 6 OZ teams competing, the Classic has been miserable so far. Save the Victorian Allan Iacuone's second place in stage 3, the big losers for OZ have been the AIS-Giant team which is the effective National Squad. The team lost Robbie McEwan, its main hope for the GC. He is suffering from a sciatic nerve injury (also rumoured to be a knee injury) which forced him out of the Worlds team. The injury has showed no sign of improving and he finished the crit 5 laps down. He did not start the Monday stages.
With Ampol and Motorola in such strong positions, the AIS and fellow Australian teams can at least feel comfortable knowing that the onus of controlling the race is not theirs. "Motorola has assumed the control so far. But i think they will be doing that soon and hand it to Ampol as they have the first and second overall" said the AIS team manager Brian Stephens.
He said, "for us, that means we will ride a bit discreetly and wait for the opportunities. The only danger is if Motorola suddenly stop controlling and Ampol take over, that a break escapes in the lull and we are not in it."
However, the AIS may have to wait until tomorrow (Monday) for those attacks b/c many riders will be saving their strength for this afternoon's (Monday) 3.6 ITT up some steep hills in Newcastle.