Solo and a sprint settle stage 3 on ‘greatest mountain in the world’ while Plapp, Anderson seal GC – Tour of Bright

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The Mt Buffalo finale of the Tour of Bright delivered two vastly different outcomes across the Women’s A and Men’s A races, going from a scorching solo win to a group sprint finish.

The mountain bikers ruled stage 3, with local Kathryn McInerney (Trek Shimano Australia) putting more than one minute into her rivals in Women’s A while Jack Ward (BridgeLane) claimed his second summit victory of the tour in a sprint from a just over a dozen riders. It was an uncharacteristically large group that charged toward the line with Ward as headwinds and wet weather encouraged the riders to stick together till later on the climb that Luke Plapp – probably only half jokingly – refers to as the ‘greatest mountain in the world’. 

There were, however, no changes to the top spots on the general classification on the 63.9km stage as men’s race leader Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) was firmly ensconced in the lead group and carrying an extremely healthy margin on the overall. Still he did lose 11 seconds of his lead of 1:59 to Ward when he finished 13th because a part of the lead group mistakenly took the vehicle deviation on the right rather than heading to the finish line on the left. That meant they had to swing back around to cross the line.