Brave Bevin goes down
A stoic Patrick Bevin bravely battled through the final stage of the Tour Down Under, but was unable to win his maiden WorldTour stage race.
The Kiwi cyclist picked up a number of injuries after a heavy crash on Saturday’s fifth stage which almost saw him fall out of contention before he hauled himself back up to the peloton.
But that effort, and the pain of his injuries, proved too much in yesterday’s 151.5-kilometre sixth and final stage to the top of Willunga Hill, south of Adelaide, South Australia.
Bevin succumbed very early on the first ascent of Willunga Hill, some 25km from the finish of the stage, with a descent of the hill and another ascent still to go.
"It’s a pretty disappointing way to end the week,’’ he said after finishing 5min 41sec behind stage winner Richie Porte.
‘‘I want to have a few days to process the week.
‘‘At the end of the day, I’ll look back and say it was a great week. There was a stage win, a fight, but obviously it’s going to hurt to lose that on the last day after crashing yesterday. That’s bike racing. You’ve got to be first finished to finish first, so I’ll have to wear it.’’
Bevin came into the final stage with a 7sec lead over South African Daryl Impey and 26sec over the leading climbers, including Australian Porte and fellow Kiwi George Bennett.
He eventually finished 5min 34sec behind Impey in 41st overall, but came inside the time limit to win the consolation prize of the blue jersey for the best sprinter on the tour.
Porte won the Willunga stage for the sixth year in a row, but for the second year in a row he was beaten to the overall title by Impey, who finished in the same time as Porte on the stage to win the general classification by 13sec over the Australian.
Bennett slipped out of the top 10 into 12th after struggling up the final climb to finish 20sec behind the leaders.
Bevin said he would need some time to recover before he knew how bad his injuries were.
‘‘We’ll give it a few days to let the body recover and see. Mainly it’s just ribs at the moment, and they’re pretty sore by the time you’ve bounced around these South Australia roads for three and a half hours.’’