THE RACE DIRECTOR
Back at the Hilton hotel in central Adelaide, with Caleb Ewan having taken his fourth stage win out of a possible six, and confirming, with Richie Porte’s two stage wins and overall title, the allAustralian dominance of the 19th edition of the Tour Down Under, race organiser Mike Turtur reflects on the week’s racing in a private audience with Procycling.
The shortening of the first stage due to the temperatures in the high 40s was an unmitigated success, it seemed, with all parties happy to drop one of the three finishing circuits in Lyndoch.
“For everyone to cook for another hour wasn’t going to change anything, so it was a good call for everyone involved in the race, helping everyone to continue for the rest of the week without having been totally burned out from the first day,” says Turtur, who has headed the race since its inception in 1999. “We can’t control the weather — although I wish I could. A month before the start, I look at the long term forecasts, and it drives me insane. I’m obsessed! It really does drive me crazy. But we’ve been really lucky over the years. We’ve had some hot days, of course, but when we’ve got a circuit at the finish, it’s easier to manage a reduction of the number of laps. The point-to-point stages, however, are a little trickier.”
On stage 2, en route from Stirling to the finish in Paracombe, well ahead of the race, your favourite cycling magazine was halted by the fire brigade on the descent of Corkscrew Road — a regular TDU climb — within 15km of the finish. It was quite a scene: ‘airbomber’ planes dropped water on fires not far below us, and thick smoke drifted silently by until we were eventually waved on our way. By the time the race headed towards the finish some hours later the fires were long extinguished. Had Turtur and his team been aware of the dangers so close by?
“Of course. We have an emergency response centre that’s manned by a representative of every emergency service. They’re listening to the race and always know our GPS position. If there’s an issue – a car accident, a fallen tree, a fire – they advise us.
“When you get those kinds of calls, you go, ‘Oh, sh*t!’ In this case, there were homes that could have been affected, so obviously the fire brigade acts very quickly, but they also knew the race was coming and with that there’d be a lot of people. So, yeah, we were aware of that and I had my fingers crossed that we’d be okay. But if we ever have a situation where we can’t go a certain way, then we’re able to just stop the race. And I would. I won’t take risks.”
The race’s shift in recent years to add more appeal for GC riders as well as sprinters appears to have won the TDU even more fans.
“Since we started to finish stages at the top of Willunga Hill, it’s started to look like a major climb at the Tour de France with so many people going up there. And with the riders coming home over something like 25 minutes, the fans stay out there. Even if you’re running last, you get cheered up the climb.”
And what does the next year’s 20th edition have in store? Turtur reveals that plans are well under way but first he’s going on holiday – perhaps somewhere warm, but hopefully not too hot.