Tour Down Under - Stage 2

You wouldn’t have thought we were in the same country.  In a complete contrast to the glaring heat of yesterday, Stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under began with a cold morning half the temperature of the day before.  Steele von Hoff (UniSA) was glad of his gloves as he lined up with the 130 other riders at the starting line – Jurgen Roelandts of Lotto-Belisol and Frédéric Guesdon of FDJ-Big Mat both pulled out of the race after yesterday’s crash.

The more clement conditions meant that the attacks began almost as soon as the race did – Martin Kohler of Team BMC and Will Clarke riding for Team UniSA launched themselves off the peloton after barely a kilometre .  The pair continued expanding the gap out, reaching around seven minutes from the peloton after the first sprint point, which Kohler won with Clarke second.  The three-second time deduction for winning the sprint put Kohler just one second behind Andre Greipel’s overall lead, while three kilometres behind the riders began attacking off the front of the peloton in pursuit of sprint points.

Australian Michael Matthews of Rabobank claimed third in the sprints, but instead of the riders competing for third falling back to the peloton after the sprint point, a chase group of 12 riders formed, trailing six minutes behind the two leaders, with a few more riders 200 metres ahead of the peloton.  But their glory was short-lived, quickly reeled back into the peloton , still seven or eight minutes behind Clarke and Kohler.

But Kohler’s moment in the sun seemed to be short-lived, too.  As he and Clarke passed the second sprint point the gap went back down to 5:50, and Kohler began to drop back.  By the time they reached the finish line in Stirling to begin the first of three laps, Kohler had completely disappeared back into the peloton and Clarke had a 12-and-a-half minute lead on them.  He soloed through the finish line for the first time, attracting a huge cheer from the amassed crowd, which then stopped and stared incredulously for 11 minutes, waiting for the peloton.

The circuit took the riders a little longer than expected, around 40 minutes instead of the anticipated half an hour, but Will Clarke appeared to finish his first lap, albeit a little less comfortably than before.  The peloton rode by again 11 minutes later, having brought in an attempted break by Movistar rider Angel Madrazo during the lap.  It was a minute further back to the green lantern; AG2R La Mondiale’s Boris Shiplevskiy brought up the rear.

Between laps there was plenty to keep the eager public occupied – the Tour Parade, with its funny cars, waving drivers and  free giveaways kept the kids entertained, and the arrival of cycling legend Eddy Merckx caused great excitement among the fans.  The colourful jerseys of ProTeams and local clubs alike abounded, and every second person seemed to be pushing a bike.

But as Clarke came closer to the end of the race, his laps became slower...and the peloton became faster.  Coming round for the third time and receiving the warning bell as he began his last lap, Clarke had lost two to three minutes to the pursuing hordes on his second lap and was down to an eight-minute lead.  As the peloton raced past onto their final lap, closing in on their prey, the tension in the crowd became palpable.  They were loving the young Tasmanian underdog from the local team.

Except the prospects weren't looking good.  The commentators were counting down the gap between the leader and the peloton as they raced around the final circuit of Stirling, the crowd bellowing unheard encouragement for the 26-year-old to hold off his pursuers just a little longer.  The noise at the finish line increased dramatically as a lone rider in a convoy of motorbikes came into view just 300 metres from the finish line, the peloton held at bay long enough for Clarke to ride across the finish and claim his well-deserved stage win, along with the sprint classification jersey and the King of the Mountains jersey.

The peloton stormed by a minute later, sprinters like Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky jostling for position.  But it was destined to be an all-Aussie peloton for the day - Michael Matthews sprinted up again for second place this time, while Australian National Road Race Champion Simon Gerrans of GreenEDGE rounded out the top three.  Justifiably, Martin Kohler's efforts earlier in the day put him two seconds ahead of Andre Greipel to claim the ochre leader's jersey.

On another note, a personal highlight of the day - as the riders began heading back out onto the road to ride back to the Tour village, the traffic being at a standstill, I found Jérémy Roy of Team FDJ-Big Mat, who kindly stopped to speak to me for a minute.  He even handed me his bidon (which was nice and cold, by the way) after I gave him a small toy koala for his daughter Julia.  Maybe I need an FDJ jersey as well now...