You can yell for Cadel all you want today because history says he won’t be able to wrest back the Ochre leader’s jersey from the shoulders of Simon Gerrans on the final stage of the 2014 Tour Down Under.
Three times the race has gone into the final stage with two riders tied on time but only once has the race leadership changed.
In 2012, Gerrans led Alejandro Valverde on count-back but the Spaniard couldn’t engineer a time bonus in his favour.
In 2003, Mikel Astarloza was tied with Lennie Lange Kristensen going into the final stage and prevailed
And 2001, Stuart O’Grady went into the final stage tied with Kai Hundertmark but claimed a time bonus on an intermediate sprint to win the TDU by two seconds.
One second also separated Martin Elmiger and Karl Menzies in 2007 before Elmiger won an intermediate sprint to secure a three second win.
Of course, it’s cycling and anything can happen, but it would be awful to see someone’s misfortune hand a rival a win.
But looking back through the week, the unexpected has happened too, so maybe there’s another twist in the tale.
Ultimately, our three Aussie big guns will be pleased with their week, whatever happens today.
Gerrans, Evans and Porte have all won a stage, and for January, have shown great form.
All of them have bigger goals this season, so they’ll be glad that not every performance has been perfect. No one wants to be peaking too soon.
I do feel sorry for Cadel though. His ride on Corkscrew was so special, it had “TDU winning ride” all over it. He’s won much bigger races than the Tour Down Under, but surely any General Classification rider would love to win the country’s biggest stage race.
Instead, Simon Gerrans is poised to become the first rider to win three Tours Down Under, and it will also be richly deserved.
Gerrans was arguably the smartest rider on Willunga, where having tasted both defeat and victory on the climb he knew what to do and when to do it.
His Sport Director Matt White agreed 100%.
“It’s hard not to panic, but [Simon Gerrans was] cool as a cucumber. Once you get to that last kilometre and a half, if you’re on the wheel there, you’re not going to lose it. Even if Cadel hadn’t been dropped today, we were pretty confident we could have gotten three seconds tomorrow.”
“Now we don’t have to, and we can play it defensive. I really doubt Ulissi or Cadel will fight for the time bonuses tomorrow, because they know they cannot beat Simon in those sprints. There were no nerves today. We were all very confident we could something here today.
“Over the last three years, he’s done well on this climb. It’s a climb that suits him. This climb is always won in the last kilometre, so long as he didn’t get distanced too much in the steep part at the bottom, he could attack at the top. Simon is very smart, and he rode a very calculating climb.”
After losing the race lead to Evans on the Stage three, he promised to throw everything at Cadel to try and get the Ochre jersey back. And Gerrans was true to his word.
The systematic way the Orica-GreenEDGE team set about eroding Evans lead was chilling.
Jens Voigt’s typically amazing ride yesterday may have altered Gerrans plans before the Willunga climb, but in the end it didn’t matter. When it came down to it Evans couldn’t go with Ulissi and Gerrans at the top of the hill and paid the price.
“In the end, I have to say Orica rode fantastic and they raced for every second here all week,” Evans said.
“When they put pressure on me after the king of the mountain sprint after that first time up Willunga, it caught some of our team on the back foot.
“That cost me at the start (of the climb) where I had to make my moves to secure the overall.”
No one in the BMC camp is prepared to concede victory is beyond Cadel, but Sport Director Alan Peiper admits it will be hard.
“No, it’s not over, but if you got to come from behind, it’s a little bit difficult in a criterium. We will discuss our options tonight to see what we come up with.”
The young and old of cycling were both highlighted on the slopes of Willunga Hill yesterday.
Jens Voigt gave us another bravado performance, driving the four man break out to nearly nine minutes, before leading everyone over Willunga Hill on the first ascent.
He then attacked on the run in to the final ascent before being swallowed as the incline reached its steepest gradient.
Meanwhile, UniSA rider Jack Haig finished 20th only 53 seconds behind securing his victory in the Young Rider Classification.
Born in Queensland, Haig has been on the podium in both the National Under 23 Road Championships and the National MTB championships.
He’s currently the National Road Series champion and racing at his first Santos TDU is sitting in 17th on GC.
Other riders to have won the Young Rider title here include Rohan Dennis (2012), Cameron Meyer (2011), Simon Clarke (2007), Luis Leon Sanchez (2005), Phil Gilbert (2004), and Cadel Evans (1999), who like Haig was riding in his first Tour Down Under
Let’s hope this success convinces Haig that his future is on the road and not his MTB.
Stage Five of the Tour Down Under offered us the past, the present, and future of cycling and neatly rolled up into one wonderful day.
It was amazing on the climb yesterday, just like a stage of the Tour de France they say.
It’s hard to imagine Stage Six will have the same drama, but after what we’ve seen over the past five days, you just never know.
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