Flat chat Pat attacks pack
Perfectly timed sprint hands Bevin memorable Stage 2 win
PATRICK Bevin fired a warning shot that he meant business on Stage 1 but even he was in shock yesterday after upstaging the world’s best sprinters to win Stage 2 of the Tour Down Under in Angaston.
The 27-year-old New Zealander enhanced his general classification ambitions by moving into the ochre jersey with the first WorldTour win of his career — and in the most unlikely of circumstances.
A noted time-trialler, Bevin avoided a major crash in the final kilometre of yesterday’s shortened stage to the Barossa and decided to contest the uphill sprint, where he was too good for Caleb Ewan and Peter Sagan.
He declared his hand on Stage 1 on Tuesday by taking five bonus seconds in the breakaway and that’s what he now leads the race by from Elia Viviani going into a gruelling stage to Uraidla today.
His team CCC — formerly known as BMC — was riding for its sprinter Jakub Mareczko yesterday but Bevin was given free rein and he cashed in.
“Look, I don’t think anyone was picking that, I wasn’t picking that, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a good run in a bunch sprint,” he said.
“I’ve done a lot of work in the off-season with time trialling and power, simplifying what I was doing, and obviously it’s working because I was floating around the finish thinking ‘ Man I’ve got some legs here I’m going to get a run at the line’.
“It’s my first WorldTour win, I wouldn’t have put money on it being in a sprint like that ... but it’s amazing. New team, we were third yesterday and winning today sets a precedent.”
His performances on the first two stages have made Bevin a marked man and he is forecasting a gigantic battle from Lobethal to Uraidla today, where the peloton will do seven laps of a hilly circuit before the finish.
Sagan, who was a surprise winner in Uraidla last year after climbing over Norton Summit, is realistic about his chances today.
“It’s going to be harder than these two days but we will see. I am here to train and if I can get something, some stage, then good, but if not I am not worried about it,” Sagan said.
Ewan, who was put into a good position by his LottoSoudal team, said he simply didn’t have the legs to finish it off yesterday.
“Obviously I got into a position where I could start my sprint where I wanted to and they got me there but in the end those 2km of uphill really took it out of me and my sprint wasn’t as good as I would have hoped,” he said.