THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Stage 1: Renshaw claims TDU opener
It's been four years coming, but on a baking hot Tuesday in Angaston, Mark Renshaw finally delivered on what he'd long set out to do.
Maybe it was the hours spent behind a motorbike over the Australian summer, paced by his father over the dead roads of Bathurst in country New South Wales. Maybe it was the added strength that comes with three full seasons as a professional, under the wise-old wings of team manager Roger Legeay.
Or maybe it was his directeur-sportif Serge Beucherie, who at the start of the week told him in no uncertain terms: "This year has got to be the year you step up."
Maybe it was all of these things. But whatever it was, on a slightly uphill run to the line, the 25-year-old speedster from Crédit Agricole confidently launched himself with 200 meters remaining and never looked at risk of losing, with a hair splitting Caisse d'Epargne's Jose Rojas and Rabobank's Graeme Brown racing for second.
"Whoof... Geez... my heart-rate hasn't that high a long time," puffed Renshaw, unable to take the grin off his face. "I've been chasing a ProTour victory now for four years and finally I got one - and in Australia - sensational!
"With 300 [meters] to go, it kind of split in the front and because of the split I had to go early, but I didn't know who was behind me or who was there. I'm normally more of a 'punch' sprinter, so the last 100 meters is where I can past the most blokes, but this year I seem to have some really good force," he said.
As the saying goes, with victory come the spoils, and in a series of firsts, Renshaw not only claimed his first ProTour stage win but also the first race leader's jersey in the Tour Down Under. And before you label him 'only a sprinter', just remember where he finished three years ago - in eighth place and just a minute and 18 seconds behind winner Luis Sanchez.
"I can't count that [winning overall] out," he said, "that's for sure. I've been top-10 here before so I see no reason why I can't do it again; this year's [course] is a little bit easier, so I think it's possible. Every year as I get older, it gets a little bit easier to get going; I've certainly done nothing different and it's starting to pay off."
Added Renshaw with a tone of declaration: "This is really a stepping stone. I'm 25 - I'm certainly still young as a bike rider - but now's where I start to win big races."
Four seconds back on equal time are Rojas and Cofidis' Mickael Buffaz, the latter also the leader on points courtesy of his participation in a three-man breakaway earlier in the day. Belgian Philippe Gilbert (Française des Jeux) was first over the only categorized climb of the stage, and wears the mountains jersey heading into Wednesday's 148 kilometer trip from Stirling to Hahndorf.
Mawson Lakes burns bright
At the start in Mawson Lakes just north of Adelaide's city center, the sun was up but so was the wind. Combine that with a deceptively challenging parcours that in years past narrowed the list of potential winners to no more than a handful, and the scene was set for 129km of nervous racing.
By the 11a.m. kick-off, the sun had burned most of the clouds away as the mercury hovered around the 90-degree mark and was expected to become even warmer as the day wore on. Already after 11.2km, the first mountains leader of the 2008 TDU was decided as Gilbert led Javier Aramendia (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Marcus Burghardt (High Road) over the day's one and only mountain prime at Gould Creek.
It was peloton groupé but the pace was on as a seven-man group skipped away at the 18km mark only to be caught 12km later. However, the brief regrouping resulted in a more successful counter when Buffaz, Dimitri Champion (Bouygues Telecom) and Aussie youngster Richie Porte (UniSA) took advantage of a slight lull, with the peloton seemingly content to see them go.
Making the most of their newfound freedom, the French-Aussie trio pressed their advantage to a very healthy 4:40 by the first sprint along the Barossa Valley Highway coming after 50.6km. Though with stage honors in mind, it was rather uneventful as Buffaz took the bonus prime in Lyndoch uncontested.
When that aforementioned name took the second and final sprint at Nuriootpa, marking 86.4km covered, it became a certainty he would don the sprint jersey by the day's end unless one of his two other companions were to win the stage. But with some 50km remaining and their buffer a little too healthy for the peloton's liking, the thought of any of them succeeding appeared unlikely as Team CSC and Crédit Agricole began to wipe off their advantage with apparent ease.
20 clicks from the finish in Angaston it was down to a minute - and when one's lead is being talked about in terms of seconds a tad too far from home, you know it's just small-talk.
Leaving the doomed trio out in the lurch for as long as possible, the sprinters' teams made their final sweep 5km out. The final 500 meters wasn't easy to judge with a right-turn at 300 to go and a left at 200 before a slight rise to the finish - but Renshaw picked it to perfection and had the legs to match.
"It [the break] wasn't too far [from the finish] but I knew they were going to come back," Renshaw said. "Jeremy [Hunt] did an awesome job; he got me to 500 [meters] to go and after that it was just up to me. My team worked really hard so I needed to repay them."
The road ahead
Wednesday's menu is another lumpy affair, and at 148km, a little longer. Once again, two sprints and a mountain prime feature along a reversed figure-eight route from Stirling to Hahndorf, with riders negotiating three smaller circuits around the bratwurst-mad town before a flat, slightly downhill run to the finish.
Results, Stage 1
1. Mark Renshaw (Aus) Credit Agricole, 3:13:33
2. Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Caisse D'Epargne
3. Graeme Brown (Aus) Rabobank
4. Allan Davis (Aus) Unisa - Australia
5. Jan Robert Forster (Ger) Gerolsteiner
6. Stuart O’Grady (Aus) Team Csc
7. Mathew Hayman (Aus) Rabobank
8. Andre Greipel (Ger) Team High Road
9. Lloyd Mondory (Fra) Ag2R-La Mondiale
10. Murilo Antonio Fischer (Bra) Liquigas
Overall after Stage 1
1. Mark Renshaw (Aus) Credit Agricole, 3:13:23
2. Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Caisse D'Epargne, at 0:04
3. Mickael Buffaz (Fra) Cofidis Le Credit Par Telephone
4. Graeme Brown (Aus) Rabobank, 0:06
5. Dimitri Champion (Fra) Bouygues Telecom
6. Richie Porte (Aus) Unisa - Australia, 0:08
7. Allan Davis (Aus) Unisa - Australia, 0:10
8. Jan Robert Forster (Ger) Gerolsteiner
9. Stuart O’Grady (Aus) Team Csc
10. Mathew Hayman (Aus) Rabobank
