Flying Kiwi puts the world on notice
PATRICK Bevin fired a warning shot that he meant business on stage one but even he was in shock yesterday after upstaging the best sprinters in the world to win stage two of the Tour Down Under.
The 27-year-old New Zealander enhanced his general classification ambitions by moving into the ochre jersey with the first world tour win of his career, and in the most unlikely of circumstances.
A noted time-trial cyclist, Bevin avoided a major crash in the final kilometre of the 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 one 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 their sprinter Jakub Mareczko yesterday but Bevin was given free rein and he cashed in.
“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’.”
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, a surprise winner in Uraidla last year after climbing over Norton Summit, said he was realistic about his chances.
“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.