THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Cooke nails win as Menzies holds lead Down Under
Unibet sprinter Baden Cooke underlined his early season ambitions by claiming a well-deserved victory onthe rain-soaked third stage of the Tour Down Under Friday.
Cooke, a former Tour de France green jersey winner, flew first over the finish line of the 128km stage, drenched but happy having stayed true to his morning pledge to claim a win in the early part of the season.
Five seconds further back was Australian Chris Jongewaard (UniSA), one of six riders contending the finale, who was initially part of a 19-man breakaway but whose powerful riding left the peloton trailing 14 minutes behind.
Cooke was one of 19 riders who split from the field in the first ten kilometers of the stage and by the 15 kilometer mark had a one minute lead on the bunch. None of the escapees had been in Wednesday’s decisive break, so most were more than 26 minutes off the time of overall leader Karl Menzies (UniSA). The sole exception was Belarus rider Viktor Rapinski (Navigators Insurance) who was sitting just over 16min off the race lead.
The 19 leaders powered through the twisting, undulating course and at the first 'SA Lotteries' intermediate sprint at Echunga (15.5km) Rapinski claimed the points and time bonus ahead of Josep Jufre Pou (Predictor Lotto) and Australian Matt Goss (CSC).
By the time the leading group reached the second intermediate sprint at Goolwa (69.8km) they had a handy advantage of close to five minutes on the peloton and again it was Rapinski who claimed the sprint with Frenchman Christophe Laurent (Crédit Agricole) second and New Zealand's Scott Lyttle third.
The next target for the leaders was the 'A Brilliant Blend' King of the Mountain at Kerby Hill near Port Elliot and Italian Giampaolo Cheula (Barloworld) struck out to win the points over the summit with current King of the Mountain leader, Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin (AG2R Prevoyance) picking up the second placed points to protect his sprint jersey. Pou was third.
The leaders regrouped shortly after the climb but then the attacks started and several riders struggled to stay in touch. Closing in on the finish Belgian Wim Vansevenant (Predictor-Lotto) tried to escape but his effort was in vain and Cooke countered with Jongewaard in tow.
As a teammate of race leader Menzies, Jongewaard had hitched a free ride with the leaders for most of the day. Despite his relative freshness Cooke dug deep and had teammate Jeremy Hunt to thank for making a big contribution in the chaotic closing stages.
"Hunt did an incredible amount of work. When I got away over the final climb with the UniSA guy (Jongewaard), he'd been sitting on all day so I knew he was going to be fresh," said Cooke, who picked up his fourth stage win on the race. "I was really spent and we just went for it. I gave him a few turns andthen he was happy just to stay away and he (Jongewaard) did most of the work in the final kilometer and I was happy to beat him easily in the sprint."
Menzies spent his third day in the race leader's ochre jersey but he will be pushed all the way on Saturday's penultimate stage, held over 147km from Willunga to Willunga.
It features the dreaded Willunga hill climb, which often acts as a race-decider when the time gaps are miniscule, and the big Tasmanian has at least four riders capable of challenging him for the jersey.
Switzerland's Martin Elmiger, of Ag2r, is second overall at only one second adrift, with CSC's young Danish ace Lars-Ytting Bak is only seven seconds adrift in third.
Predictor-Lotto's Matthew Lloyd, one of a number of up-and-coming Australians in the race, is fourth at nine seconds while Sweden's Gustav Erik Larsson is fifth at 17.
Cooke meanwhile has given his team a timely boost.
A ProTour newcomer, Unibet has been caught in the middle of a long-running feud between the UCI and major race organizers, which threatens their participation in 11 of the ProTour races.
Cooke, however, is confident the spat will be resolved ahead of a season that he feels could be one of his best yet.
"It's always good to kick off with a win," added the 28-year-old Victorian. "The team has gone into the ProTour this year and we want to make a big impact so this is the best way to start. I rang my parents this morning to tell them to keep an eye out, I was going to have a crack today.
"The first win of the season is the hardest to get and to get your confidence back. Hopefully I can get this into a bit of snowball and get a few more."
