Graeme Frislie (CCACHE x Par Kup) moved up to the top step of the podium on stage 2 of the Citroën Bay Crits in Geelong, Australia, powering past Craig Wiggins (ARA Skip Capital) to claim not only stage victory but also the yellow jersey of the race leader.
Rounding out the podium it was again Wiggins teammate Blake Agnoletto while Frislie’s teammate Kurt Eather snatched fourth ahead of stage 1 winner Brenton Jones (Bayside Citroën) in what was a chaotic finish as Jones squeezed through the inside beside Wiggins on the final corner. That fifth place put Jones four points behind Frislie in the overall points tally, with the stage 2 winner heading into the final stage with the yellow jersey and a tally of 22 points.
“That was pretty awesome. It was really good fun out there,” said Frislie after doing a final lap around the Eastern Gardens circuit to cool down in what was now a fresh evening breeze, with a cool change having swept through early in the race. “It was pretty hard with that wind every lap but the legs came good in the end. It was a bit hairy there in that finish with BJ (Jones) and Wiggins coming together but I managed to get a good run at the end and I’m pretty happy with that.”
Wiggins had come through that final corner on the inside and was quickly at the front, opening up the sprint, but he couldn’t hold off the accelerating Frislie.
“I figured I would try and go around the outside, stay out of the wind as much as possible,” said the 21-year-old. “I knew everyone was going to be diving to the inside so I figured if I got a good line around the outside it would probably be pretty clean, that I might lose a bit of length but I should be able to get through there fine.”
Frislie, who had come second on stage 2, had been contemplating giving stage 3 a miss, to concentrate on the rapidly approaching Australian Road National Championships, but with the yellow jersey at stake, he’ll now be lining up for the final day of racing on a hot-dog circuit which takes in Geelong’s Ritchie Boulevard.
How it unfolded
The second of the two days of racing on the 1.9km Eastern Gardens circuit, running for 50 minutes plus three laps, was switched to run anti-clockwise, therefore introducing the climb and sharp bend on the final run into the line.
The pace was high from the beginning and while the attacks kept coming there was no one that was given much room to move through the first 20 minutes. It wasn’t until Connor Sens and James Whelan…
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