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Peter Kennaugh leads Jayco Herald Sun Tour after Stage 1

Roar Rookie
3rd February, 2016
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Nathan Haas riding the 2014 Sun Herald Tour. (Tim Renowden)
Roar Rookie
3rd February, 2016
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Peter Kennaugh has won Stage 1 of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, beating Team Sky teammate Chris Froome, in a time of three hours, one minute and 47 seconds.

The race started off at quite a reasonable pace, with the leaders reading Yarra Glen from Healesville in less than 30 minutes. Kennaugh averaged a speed of 41.6 km/h throughout the race, and now leads the tour by seven seconds over Froome.

Dion Smith from ONE PRQ Cycling finished third, leading a pack of 29 riders who finished with a gap of +17 behind the two leading men from Team Sky. Any breakaways were relatively small, generally ranging from 40 seconds to three minutes.

Starting with 96 riders, the first stage saw 94 riders finish. One rider from both the St George Merida Cycling team and the Australian National Team not finishing.

The general classification sees the top three in Keenaugh, Froome and Smith. Kennaugh now leads by +7 seconds over his teammate while Smith is another +23 back from the lead.

Not only does Kennaugh lead the overall race, but he is also joint-leader for the Green jersey classifications for the sprinters on 10 points with Benjamin Hill (Attaque Team Gusto). Craig Evers (Data Cisco Racing) and Chris Froome are both on eight points.

In terms of intermediate sprint wins, Craig Evers won the Warburton section, Benjamin Hill won the first Healesville section and Kennaugh won the second Healesville – the race to the finish.

To continue his team’s dominance with Kennaugh, Froome is leading the King of the Mountain with 24 points after winning the category one climb, with Giacomo Berlato (Nippo-Vini Fantini) on 20 points.

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The orange jersey for being the most aggressive rider was awarded to youngster Nicholas Katsonis from State of Matter cycling. The traditional white jersey for the U23 leader is currently held by Chris Hamilton from the Australian National Team.

Team Sky lead the overall team classifications, from Avanti Isowhey Sport, by 25 seconds, with a team total of 9 hours, 13 minutes and 38 seconds so far.

Tomorrow sees Stage 2 start from Yarra Glen at 10:30am, before the riders travel 144.2 kilometres to Moe, where they are expected to finish around 2pm.

At this stage, Team Sky are clear favourites but whether or not Kennaugh or Froome will win remains to been seen. We will find out over the next three stages.

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