Aussie team on brink of glory

MITCHELTON-SCOTT is on the cusp of becoming the first Australian team to win a GrandTour after race leader Simon Yates survived his Giro d’Italia time trial test.

On a significant day for Australian cycling, Rohan Dennis (BMC, pictured) won the Stage 16 race against the clock, scorching along the 34.2km in 40 minutes to edge out Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin) and Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb).

But it was Yates’s gritty ability to limit the damage to his closest rival, and world time trial champion Dumoulin, that has the Brit in a commanding position to create history in Italy. Leading by 2min 11sec at the start of the day, Yates conceded 1min 15sec to Dumoulin and will now carry a 56-second advantage into the last week of the secondbiggest race in the world.

“The first 25km were OK, but the last 10km or whatever it was, I was dying a million deaths,” Yates said afterwards.

“It was really hard work, but I’m happy. I thought I was going to lose a lot more time in that final part but I think everyone was dying, so it’s happy days for me.”

Dennis’s performance catapulted the South Australian to sixth overall.

“Obviously I wanted to come here and win a stage, and I was hoping for Israel to be that stage, but this was a big target as well, so to come here and repay the team for all their hard work is a big day for me,” he said.