Jayco Herald Sun Tour 2011

The Jayco Herald Sun Tour is the oldest stage race in Australia and is even among the oldest in the world.  The UCI Oceania Tour race travels around Victoria over five days and attracts not only the Australian Continental teams, but even some ProTour teams as well.  Previous winners include riders like Aussie pros Baden Cooke, Stuart O'Grady and Simon Gerrans, as well as British rider Bradley Wiggins, who won the last Tour in 2009.  The JHST was put on hold due to the UCI Road World Championships being held in Geelong last year, but it was back with a bang for 2011 and certainly attracted its fair share of attention.

Stage 1 - Whittlesea to Ballarat included a pair of sprint points at Riddells Creek and Creswick and some categorised climbs in Woodend and Daylesford.  By the time the race reached Creswick, around 20 kilometres out of Ballarat, a group of six riders including Drapac Cycling's Rhys Pollock had an eight-minute lead on the peloton.  They raced into Ballarat, blowing away the Mocka's predicted arrival times at each check, where Pollock sprinted away to take the stage and the yellow jersey of the leader ahead of Australian National Road Race Champion Jack Bobridge and Team Genesys' Nathan Haas, amongst others.

Stage 2 stepped back in time briefly, with the stage start in the main street of Ballarat's 1850s-era replica gold town Sovereign Hill.  The riders crossed the line at the firing of the redcoat soldier's musket and made their way out of the tourist park and onto the main road towards Geelong, by which time the peloton was already losing riders.  Two sprint points, a Category 3 climb and a Category 4 climb later, two riders finally got away at 50 kilometres to go, only to be caught five kilometres from the end of the stage in Geelong.  The consequent bunch sprint cleared the stage for South African Team MTN Qhubeka's Reinardt Janse van Rensburg to take the stage win, while Drapac Professional Cycling put in the hard yards to keep Rhys Pollock in yellow.

Stage 3 took the riders on a beautiful loop from Geelong down to Lorne and then back up the spectacularly scenic Great Ocean Road towards Port Phillip Heads.  The peloton was about 30 kilometres out of Geelong before they let a breakaway of four go, none of them threatening enough in the general classification to warrant a chase.  The peloton and particularly the breakaway battled the crosswinds as they rode along the Victorian coast on the world's longest war memorial, but the quartet was caught just 20 kilometres from the stage finish in Drysdale.  By this point ProTeam Skil-Shimano had joined Drapac on the front in the pace-making, Drapac protecting their yellow while Skil-Shimano was hoping for a stage win.  Both teams got their wish, with German Skil-Shimano rider Marcel Kittel sprinting to his 16th win of the season and Rhys Pollock finishing with the bunch to maintain his overall lead.

But Pollock lost hope of keeping his lead any longer on Stage 4, the 'queen stage' beginning in Sorrento and finishing with a triple lap up and over the Category 1 climb of Arthur's Seat.  An early break, aggressively led by Genesys' Patrick Shaw looking to put teammate Nathan Haas in yellow as well as defend his lead in the sprint classification, went off the front and defended an advantage of around three to four minutes until Saxobank-Sungard, Drapac and Garmin-Cervelo banded together and brought the break back into the fold on the second ascent of Arthur's Seat.  As the climbs took their toll on the riders it was left to a select few to race for the finish.  Russian Katusha rider Egor Silin took his first pro victory with a stage win, while up-and-coming Genesys rider Nathan Haas pipped Jack Bobridge to the line and claimed the yellow.

The final day of the race saw the riders bring it home to Melbourne for the final criterium around Lygon St.  The threat of poor weather didn't keep the fans away, and Melbourne's cycling enthusiasts crowded Argyle Square to see the local heroes and overseas legends before the start of the day's racing.  By 3pm the women's crit had finished and the crowds began lining the street as the starting gun went for the final time and the riders began racing north up Lygon St.  The flat crit-style stage wasn't conducive to breakaways, and though Cameron Wurf, Wes Sulzberger and Adam Phelan, amongst others, did try, the peloton made sure they were back in the bunch coming up on the final finish.  Despite the bunch sprint, Skil-Shimano's Marcel Kittel was first over the line easily to take his second victory at the Sun Tour and bring his season total up to 17.  Nathan Haas, meanwhile, was completely overwhelmed at having won the general classification, sprints classification and young rider classification, while his team of Genesys Wealth Advisors won the teams classification.  Talk about rainbow jerseys!

And as a happy ending to a happy tale, Haas has since received a two-year pro contract to ride for Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up good young Aussie talent.  If this year is a precedent, he'll be riding for GreenEDGE soon enough.