The opening stage of the Tour of Bright on Saturday continued the tradition of throwing up surprises, with Will Cooper (St George) proving the strongest from among the break of nine that started the closing climb with a gap of around four minutes, too much for even the likes of Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) and Oscar Onley (Picnic-Post NL) to close.
"I thought that was a good opportunity to be up there and I was just lucky to have really good legs today and make the most of it," Cooper told Cyclingnews at the top of Tawonga Gap.
"I thought I could go alright, but definitely surprised with the win. I wasn't expecting that," he added, explaining that "I'm not the best climber, but long, sustained efforts like that kind of suit me."
Still, even with the big gap to the break at the start of the final climb two-time winner Plapp made some serious inroads as he charged up the ascent at a furious pace, setting a new KOM at a scorching 17:40, which was enough to move him up into fourth – with a 1:51 deficit to the race lead – as he caught all the break riders except Cooper and the second and third placed Team Brennan riders, Tristan Saunders and Oliver Ward, who is just 17.
In fact so fast was the pursuit up the climb from the riders behind that the top seven positions on the 7.42km segment with a gradient of 6.6% were set during Saturday's event, with Kelland O'Brien the closest Strava time to Plapp on the segment with 18:11. Oscar Onley finished 26th on the rainy opening stage at the Tour, which formed part of his early training as he starts the build for the season ahead.
Talia Appleton (Praties) was chasing not just the 90.2km stage to the top of Tawonga Gap, which she cleaned up for a second year running this time with a massive 1:18 margin. She was also after the Strava QOM that Sarah Gigante had nudged down to 20:53 in March. Appleton, who stood on the Tour de l'Avenir overall podium this year, was ever so close, missing out by a frustratingly slim two seconds.
The women's field had hit the climb relatively intact, although a crash on the descent from Rosewhite had taken down a number of riders, some out of the race, injured, and others, like Sophie Marr (Praties), having a long, lonely ride back once they got returned to the bike
Once on the climb, the field was quickly shattered by Appleton's acceleration.
"I was trying to see how close I could get to Sarah's QOM, so I was just kind ot full gas from the bottom," Appleton said in an interview on the Tour of Bright social media.
"It was a bit weird to go really hard again, it's been a couple of months now since probably going that deep, but I felt pretty good out there, so that's a good sign for the summer, which is creeping up really fast."
The two riders closest were the 17-year-old Neve Parslow (ARA Skip Capital), who came 8th at the World Championships junior road race in September, and WorldTour rider Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ). Parslow claimed second on the stage and Chapman third, both coming over the line 1:18 back.
Stage 2 Time Trial
It was a packed field for the 17.4km individual time trial in the Buckland Valley. With the two Australian time trial champions on the start line in Plapp and Chapman, as well as both U23 Australian title holders – Alli Anderson and Zac Marriage.
Rain was falling on and off, and thunder rolled in the distance as the women's A riders were closing out the second stage of racing for the day, with the out-and-back time trial long enough to deliver substantial time shifts overall.
Chapman turned the tables on Appleton in the afternoon, with the race against the clock the perfect opportunity to fight back for the Australian time trial champion, who also came fourth at Road World Championships in the discipline and was part of Australia's world title winning Mixed Relay Team.
It was an advantage she made count, not only winning the stage but also vaulting into the top spot on the overall. Chapman flew through the rain to win with a time of 22:59, 1:13 ahead of second-placed Kirsty Watts and 1:16 ahead of Marr, who made an impressive rebound after her crash on stage 1. The all important rider to watch for the overall battle, was Appleton who had gone into the stage with a 1:18 lead but that quickly disappeared in the Buckland Valley as she dropped 2:03 to Chapman. That left her with a 46-second deficit to Chapman, who knocked her down to second overall. Emily Dixon sits third overall at 1:38 after coming sixth in the time trial.
"I had it handed to me this morning by Talia Appleton up Tawonga Gap so I think tomorrow the battle for the GC overall will be really tight actually because she did put more than a minute into me there," Chapman said in an interview with race organisers. "So I've taken it back today, but let's go to it for tomorrow."
Australian national time trial champion Plapp was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, victorious in the men's time trial, delivering a time of 19:57, 29 seconds ahead of his Jayco-AlUla teammate Kelland O'Brien and 36 seconds ahead of U23 Australian road champion Julian Baudry (Team Brennan).
Stage 1 winner Cooper had said after taking the victory that "I've got a nice little buffer, but there's some really talented world class riders here, so I'm not sure if those couple of minutes might be enough, but I'll do my best, and I guess we'll see."
His best at the time trial, turned out to be more than enough to keep a hold on the top spot heading into the finale on Mount Buffalo, as he delivered a strong performance to come fourth at 1:04 behind Plapp. That left him with an advantage of 46 seconds on the overall. Saunders shifted into third, at 1:31 behind Cooper.
The race concludes on Sunday with a 59.7km effort that ends at the top of Mount Buffalo, which delivers just over 1,000m of elevation gain with relatively steady gradients of 4-5% across 21km.
