YOUNG STARS BLITZ BUNINYONG
AUSTRALIAN cycling star Alex Edmondson has unleashed an outstanding finish to take out his first national elite road title.
It is the first time in four years that top Australian team Mitchelton-Scott has won the coveted men’s elite road title at the nationals.
Edmondson outsprinted fellow leader Chris Harper (Bennelong) and held off a hard-charging chase group in the pulsating finish yesterday at Buninyong.
Jay McCarthy finished second, ahead of Harper, who won a deserved bronze medal. Edmondson’s teammate, Luke Durbridge, a former winner at Buninyong, crashed with about 15km left and has a shoulder injury.
Edmondson is better known as a track rider, having won three world titles.
He was also a member of the silver-medal winning team pursuit line-up at the Rio Olympics.
The 24-year-old is the second emerging star to win a national road title.
Earlier, 23-year-old Shannon Malseed upstaged the favourites to take out the women’s race.
Edmondson and Harper took over at the front with about two laps left in the 16lap, 185.6km race.
They had caught Supercross rider Troy Herfoss, who also showed his talent without an engine by riding for about 20km by himself at the front.
Edmondson and Harper led by 33 seconds at the start of the last lap, but stars such as Caleb Ewan and Richie Porte were in hot pursuit.
Porte attacked twice on the last lap, but Edmondson and Harper managed to stay away until the last few metres.
Ewan finished fourth and Porte, spent by his efforts, was the last of the 14 leaders at the finish.
As always, it was a race of attrition and there were only 38 finishers from about 140 starters.
Porte’s BMC team was the team to watch and it was prominent throughout the race.
New teammate Simon Gerrans set a fierce pace just after halfway at the front of the main group, rapidly bringing down the time gap to the initial lead group of eight riders and shredding the peloton. Gerrans swung off with about 40km left, his work done.
Malseed was as superb as she was sneaky, upstaging some of Australian cycling’s biggest names in the 104.4km women’s race.
The biggest win of Malseed’s blossoming career also means she has gained automatic selection for the Commonwealth Games road team.
Kat Garfoot made a solo attack with 3km left and it looked like she would pull off a rare “double-double”, successfully defending the women’s road race and time trial titles.
But Malseed was in the six-rider chase group that caught her with just 50m left and won the final sprint.
Lauren Kitchen capped her outstanding ride with a bittersweet silver medal.