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2015 Tour Down Under: Stage 3 preview

Daryl Impey showed his selflessness in the Tour de France. (Image: Sky).
Roar Rookie
21st January, 2015
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This 143 kilometres stage into Parracombe is a new addition to the Tour Down Under, and the first time the tiny Adelaide Hills town has seen the Tour. The main action of the day will be centred on the 1.2 kilometres climb up Torrens Hill Rd at a healthy 9 per cent.

The first real chance to make some gaps in the race, and the climbers will be wanting to make sure that they get a crack at the victory. Almost as important a day for the General Classification riders as the Willunga Hill stage.

The Course:
At 143 kilometress, it isn’t the longest of the race nor the hardest, but it will provide little respite for those struggling on the hills, as a the day will be including three circuits around Charleston/Lobethal with a nasty little 1.8 kilometres of 4.2 per cent leg testing material on each time round.

After the circuits the run in to Parracombe is mostly flat until the steep climb hits them for 1.2 kilometres at 9 per cent, before flattening out 350m before the finish line. 350m obviously isn’t a huge distance, and if we see someone going over the top solo, they should be a able to hold on until the finish.

The wind will be a 15km/hr southerly which won’t affect the race overly, as it will be a crosswind on the Parracombe climb, and the course shifts around so riders won’t be faced with the wind continuously coming from one direction and advantaging the peloton or the break.

The Tactics:
The breakaways in this tour have been of high quality, presumably because teams are looking to save themselves from work by sending some good riders up the road, while they sit happily in the peloton. It will be interesting to see if Orica manage to slip another guy into the break, as they have had no responsibility to chase so far, while Sky has been using up several teammates of Porte to keep the race under control.

BMC will be on call for chasing duties here as well, and Cannondale-Garmin showed on Stage 2 that they were prepared to work for Haas, so that will probably continue this stage. So clearly there will be plenty of teams interested in bringing the break back, so I think we’ll have grupo compacto (as Paul Sherwen says the Italians say) before the key climb into Parracombe.

Into the bottom of the climb we’re likely to see a leadout similar to a sprint, with teams battling to get their GC hopes onto the climb first. On these short, explosive climbs that difference can be crucial to deciding the winner, and we often see this battle at the Fleche Wallone, obviously a more prestigious race and a steeper climb, but the principle still applies.

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From there, it will mostly be a matter of who has the best legs and uses their energy most wisely. I personally believe that we won’t see one rider get away and we’ll have a group of 4-8 riders crest the summit pretty much together and sprint for the win.

The Contenders:
This suits anyone from a pure climber to a power climber who can manage one or two sustained efforts in a classics type race. Not long enough to give the purists an advantage and probably a bit too steep to favour those with more power. So as a result, I’ve got 28 names written down as potential winners, but I’ll reduce it to a more manageable few who I think will be right up there.

Firstly, Daryl Impey. Anyone who has read my other posts would know that I rate the South African highly, and he is clearly in good form, just being outkicked by a sprinter when he had all the other GC rivals beaten in Stage 2. He has a grinding style of climbing, and I doubt that you will see the South African attack, but rather try to maintain a steady pace up the climb and then win in a sprint.

His major nemesis in thwarting this plan will be Richie Porte, who knows that he can’t hope to win a sprint so he will try to attack and arrive alone at the finish. He’s riding well at the moment, and is probably the strongest climber in the race, but he hasn’t go much of a history on the shorter climbs, and I doubt he’ll have the explosive power to escape.

One guy who can put in a scintillating attack is Domenico Pozzovivo. He’s the type of rider that could profit from the favourites watching each other by making a characteristic bold attack. He looks to have some form and the confidence of his team, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a win for the pint-sized Italian. News is that he has a hairline fracture in his wrist however, while that won’t stop him climbing it will certainly be painful.

No preview of the TDU 2015 is complete without mentioning Cadel Evans and it is more than sentimentality at play here. He was a creditable fifth on the Stirling stage, looks in top form, and (remember before when I mentioned the similarities to the Fleche Wallone?) has won the Fleche Wallone. Also interesting to note is the fact that Peter Stetina holds the record Strava KOM for the climb, who was presumably doing it on a training ride with Cadel, while Impey is sixth, some 15 seconds slower.

The Verdict:
No prizes for guessing that I’d pick Impey again. I think the climb will be too short to distance him despite the gradient, and I think he’ll arrive at the top with the big GC contenders. And he wins a sprint from that group fairly easily.

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