THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
'Pretty bloody happy,' White scores stage win in Oz
Matthew White stepped out of the shadow of teammate Stuart O'Grady Friday with a hollow victory in the fourth stage of the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under.
“I've waited six bloody years for this,” White said after he crossed the line a clear winner from fellow Australian Robbie McEwen, referring to his last major stage win in the Tour of Switzerland in 1999.
Better known as a domestique on the world stage, White, 31, helped his Cofidis teammate O'Grady win last year's World Cup in Hamburg, and has carved out a profitable living for the past 10 years in that role.
But Friday was his chance to bask in the spotlight when he found himself in a six-man breakaway with McEwen, Frenchmen Sebastien Jolly, Frederic Finot and Nicolas Portal and Italian Fortunato Baliani.
With a gap of 5:35 on the peloton at the final intermediate sprint at Woodside at the 119-kilometer mark, White bided his time until 4km from the finish at Hahndorf and was able to coast to the line 150 meters clear of his rivals, savouring his victory along the way.
It was thought that McEwen would add to his impressive stage tally of 11 wins, but the Queensland Tour de France sprint champion, riding for Davitamon Lotto, said, he, too, was cheering for a White win.
“He's worked for me at world championships and Olympic Games - there was no way I was going to chase him down; I wanted to leave that to the Europeans,” McEwen said.
After 152km from Unley, the breakaway still had a margin of 3:45 to the peloton, which included overnight leader, Spain's Luis Sanchez, which meant the situation remained unchanged at the head of the leader board.
O'Grady picked up two seconds for a second in the first intermediate sprint at Echunga, reducing his deficit to 18 seconds and he remains in fifth spot overall.
Fourth in Saturday's Australian Open road championships, White said his victory was the culmination of six years of hard work.
“After yesterday when Stuey made the break today was always going to be a hard day for Liberty (Seguros) to control and I was in everything all day,” he said. “All six guys worked really well and nobody wants top sprint against Robbie. I didn't really know the circuit, but when I saw that last climb ... we’d done it the lap before and I thought it was the best time to go. If I could get a gap they would not want to help Robbie to the finish line, so I'm pretty bloody happy.”
White said his support role for O'Grady would continue in today's 147km stage at Willunga, which includes a torturous climb at Willunga Hill at the 127km mark.
“It's going to be hard to beat the Spanish guys, but we're going to go down with a fight, that's for sure,” White said.
Tour leader Sanchez was involved in several attempted breaks early in yesterday's stage before the winning attack formed between the 60km and 70km mark.
His teammate, Queenslander Allan Davis said the Liberty Seguros team had probably expended more energy that it wanted to, in controlling the tempo of the race, and he was not looking forward to today's stage.
“I've been in the lead group over Willunga Hill only once in seven tries,” Davis said ruefully.
Davis remains in fourth spot overall at 13 seconds behind Sanchez and one second adrift of Italian Paride Grillo (Panaria).
Second overall is McEwen's Davitamon Lotto teammate Johan Van Summeren, who is just two seconds off the pace.
