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Timbercorp Cup Tour of the Murray River - NE
Australia, August 26-September 2, 2007
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Stage 3 - August 27: Kerang criterium, 33 km
Irwin gets another Caribou-style win
By Rod Morris in Kerang
Queensland based Grant Irwin won his third race in Caribou-promoted history, claiming the morning's 33-kilometre criterium in Kerang. Irwin won the Merbein to Wentworth stage of the 2005 Tour of the Murray River and in this year's Timbercorp Cup series, closed off the Tour of Gippsland with victory in the Bairnsdale Criterium.
The tall 22 year-old unleashed a powerful closing sprint to edge out Gary Meuller of Melbourne and tour veteran Robbie McLachlan from Canberra. It was an all-up bunch sprint after riders had completed the 33 kilometres in just 46'33" minutes, equating to an average speed of 42.53 km/h! "The pace was definitely on, right from the start," Irwin said. "Not everything went to plan, but in the end we got the right result."
We – in Irwin terms – means the newly formed Ord Minnett team, which is very quickly establishing some very good results on the domestic Australian cycling scene. After running second to Brett Aitken in the opening stage criterium in Echuca, Irwin was awarded the leader's jersey, but then slipped to fourth place, some 29 seconds behind the new leader Peter McDonald in the Moama to Barham road stage. Another strong result in a lightning-quick criterium, kept Irwin well and truly in reach of the lead, dragging back 8 seconds on McDonald. "There is still a long way to go in this bike race, so getting into yellow this early is not exactly our team's goal," Irwin said. McDonald expressed similar feelings, but was quick to add "Its nice to be the leader, but with it comes plenty of extra attention from the rest of the field."
"You can't make a move without one team or another ready to attack you and then throw in another attack." "You have to be on your guard throughout every moment of the race, otherwise you could lose so much time that your tour would be almost over." The strong cross winds that riders endured on Sunday took its effect on a large portion of the field and realistically there are only a dozen riders left with a genuine chance of overall victory. Twelfth placed Jack Bobridge (South Australia) is 48 seconds down on McDonald, but then it's a huge jump to the 13th placed Miles Watson (NZ), who is more than 9 minutes in arrears. News from Sunday's crash that New Zealander' Josh Page had suffered severe facial injuries was also confirmed in the early part of Day 2.
Photography
For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here
Images by Shane Goss/www.licoricegallery.com
- Peter McDonald (NSWIS/FRF), leads the Fishers IGA Tour of the Murray River going into the third stage
- Shadow cycling… The shadows of Cameron Hughes and Peter Milostic on the startline in Kerang
- Gilbert Gutowski (Ord Minnett/Triple Play) corners in Kerang
- The peloton head up the home straight during the 33km stage three criterium in Kerang
- Riders had thirty laps of a 1.1km circuit in Kerang for stage three
- Riders look around for the challengers with one lap to go on stage three
- Grant Irwin (Ord Minnett/Triple Play) signals he is number one on stage three of the Tour
- Peter McDonald (NSWIS/FRF), remains in the Fishers IGA Tour leader's yellow jersey after three stages
- Mildura RoadSafe Sprints leader, Miles Watson (Specialized), signs autographs for fans in Kerang
Results
1 Grant Irwin 46.33 (42.535 km/h) 2 Gary Mueller 3 Robert McLachlan 4 Leigh Howard 5 Douglas Repacholi 6 Robert Cater 7 Nicholas Sanderson 8 Brett Aitken 9 John Ebeling 10 Matthew Sherwin 11 Miles Watson 12 Patrick Shaw 13 Michael Stallard 14 Jacob Lea 15 Jack Bobridge 16 Peter McDonald 17 Ben Mather 18 Steven Robb 19 Peter Dawson 20 Benjamin King 21 Jarrod Harman 22 Russell Gill 23 David Pell 24 Brendan Schultz 25 Darcy Rosenlund 26 Brad Edmunds 27 Tony Mann 28 Gilbert Gutowski 29 Cameron Hughes 30 Daniel Braunsteins 31 Travis Frisby 32 Samuel Rix 33 Tom Middleton 34 Nathan Wise 35 Daniel McCulloch 36 Hayden Josefski 37 Grant Webster 38 David Kemp 39 David Tozer 40 Jeremy Hills 41 Chris Jory 42 Glen Peterson 43 Jamie Crass 44 Craig Robertson 45 Gavin Nicholls 46 Chris Steffanoni 47 Matt King 48 Evan Corry 49 Matt Sillars 50 Peter Smith 51 Will Dickeson 52 Stephen Price 53 Timothy Decker 54 Nigel Sullivan 55 Jason Hegert 56 Will Wettenhall 57 Luke Aggett 58 Mark Jamieson 59 Peter Milostic 60 Thomas Baxter 61 Jonathan Coulter 62 Sean Finning 63 Shaun Higgerson 64 Miles Olman 65 Brendan Jones 0.31 66 Lachlan Stewart 67 Malcolm Rudolph 68 Vaughan Bowman 0.47 69 Re Meneaud-Young 0.48 70 Simon Brown 0.51 71 Daniel Furmston 1.21 72 Brendon Sharratt Sprints Lap 6 1 Peter Dawson 3 pts 2 Miles Watson 2 3 John Ebeling 1 Lap 8 1 Robert Cater 3 pts 2 Patrick Shaw 2 3 David Pell 1 Lap 10 1 Tony Mann 3 pts 2 Jack Bobridge 2 3 Darcy Rosenlund 1 Lap 12 1 Miles Watson 3 pts 2 Vaughan Bowman 2 3 Sean Finning 1 Lap 14 1 Sean Finning 3 pts 2 Miles Watson 2 3 Gilbert Gutowski 1 Lap 16 1 Brendon Sharratt 3 pts 2 Sean Finning 2 3 Brendan Jones 1 Lap 18 1 Brendon Sharratt 3 pts 2 Sean Finning 2 3 Michael Stallard 1 Lap 20 1 Sean Finning 3 pts 2 Brendon Sharratt 2 3 Gavin Nicholls 1 Lap 22 1 Michael Stallard 3 pts 2 David Pell 2 3 Mark Jamieson 1 Lap 24 1 David Pell 3 pts 2 Peter McDonald 2 3 Miles Olman 1 Lap 26 1 Miles Watson 3 pts 2 Patrick Shaw 2 3 David Kemp 1 Criterium championships 1 Grant Irwin 10 pts 2 Gary Mueller 9 3 Robert McLachlan 8 4 Leigh Howard 7 5 Douglas Repacholi 6 6 Robert Cater 5 7 Nicholas Sanderson 4 8 Brett Aitken 3 9 John Ebeling 2 10 Matthew Sherwin 1 Most aggressive rider 1 Sean Finning 2 pts General classification after stage 3 1 Peter McDonald 4.15.51 2 David Pell 0.08 3 Grant Irwin 0.21 4 Patrick Shaw 0.23 5 Robert McLachlan 0.33 6 Leigh Howard 0.34 7 John Ebeling 0.44 8 Tom Middleton 0.45 9 Benjamin King 0.47 10 David Kemp 11 Jack Bobridge 0.48 12 Cameron Hughes 0.49 13 Miles Watson 9.09 14 Brad Edmunds 9.22 15 Tony Mann 9.34 16 Darcy Rosenlund 9.40 17 Peter Dawson 9.55 18 Nicholas Sanderson 10.02 19 Mark Jamieson 10.12 20 Jarrod Harman 10.13 21 Brett Aitken 10.27 22 Gavin Nicholls 11.15 23 Re Meneaud-Young 11.16 24 Sean Finning 15.43 25 Robert Cater 15.48 26 Gary Mueller 15.49 27 Russell Gill 15.50 28 Will Dickeson 15.54 29 Michael Stallard 15.55 30 Gilbert Gutowski 31 Ben Mather 15.57 32 Douglas Repacholi 33 Steven Robb 15.58 34 Travis Frisby 15.59 35 Jacob Lea 36 Brendan Schultz 37 Daniel McCulloch 38 Hayden Josefski 39 Chris Steffanoni 40 David Tozer 41 Craig Robertson 42 Timothy Decker 43 Evan Corry 44 Chris Jory 45 Matt King 46 Peter Milostic 47 Matt Sillars 48 Shaun Higgerson 16.16 49 Lachlan Stewart 16.30 50 Jamie Crass 16.35 51 Miles Olman 16.55 52 Brendan Jones 16.59 53 Daniel Furmston 17.20 54 Will Wettenhall 19.24 55 Glen Peterson 21.44 56 Luke Aggett 57 Samuel Rix 24.17 58 Matthew Sherwin 29.51 59 Daniel Braunsteins 29.56 60 Jason Hegert 30.50 61 Nigel Sullivan 31.01 62 Jonathan Coulter 63 Vaughan Bowman 31.35 64 Peter Smith 31.40 65 Nathan Wise 32.07 66 Malcolm Rudolph 33.49 67 Simon Brown 34.05 68 Brendon Sharratt 34.45 69 Thomas Baxter 35.41 70 Grant Webster 36.39 71 Stephen Price 40.26 72 Jeremy Hills 42.46 Sprints classification 1 Miles Watson 30 pts 2 David Pell 19 3 Patrick Shaw 17 4 Sean Finning 16 5 Peter McDonald 15 6 Peter Dawson 13 7 Brad Edmunds 10 8 Brendon Sharratt 8 9 Grant Irwin 6 10 Darcy Rosenlund 6 11 Robert Cater 5 12 Michael Stallard 4 13 Leigh Howard 4 14 Gilbert Gutowski 4 15 David Kemp 3 16 Tony Mann 3 17 Jack Bobridge 2 18 Vaughan Bowman 2 19 Mark Jamieson 1 20 Miles Olman 1 21 Cameron Hughes 1 22 John Ebeling 1 23 Brendan Jones 1 24 Gavin Nicholls 1 25 Benjamin King 1 Criterium championships classification 1 Grant Irwin 19 pts 2 Brett Aitken 13 3 Robert McLachlan 13 4 Nicholas Sanderson 12 5 Gary Mueller 9 6 Russell Gill 7 7 Leigh Howard 7 8 Douglas Repacholi 6 9 Patrick Shaw 6 10 Robert Cater 5 11 Darcy Rosenlund 4 12 Peter Dawson 3 13 John Ebeling 2 14 Tom Middleton 2 15 Will Dickeson 1 16 Matthew Sherwin 1 Most aggressive rider classification 1 David Pell 2 pts 2 Sean Finning 2 3 Robert McLachlan 2
