There are no shortage of tales of a riders runs at a race being broken by a challenging mountain climb, but on Sunday it felt more like Luke Plapp (Ineos Grenadiers) and Sarah Gigante (Movistar) broke the mountain.
Records crumbled on Australia’s Mount Buffalo under the unrelenting pressure of the duo, with Gigante and Plapp claiming the final stage of the Bright Brewery Tour of Bright and also overall victory at the race in Victoria’s High Country.
Gigante was in the box seat when she entered the third and final stage of the two day Victorian Road Series race, which provided a rare opportunity for domestic riders to match up against returning WorldTour professionals. Already leading on the general classification the rider who looked unassailable heading into the stage, particularly given she’d offered more than just a hint of the strength of her climbing form on Tawonga Gap on Saturday.
That form held firm through the final 63.7km stage winding through the middle of the riverside tourist location of Bright, past Porepunkah and then up Mount Buffalo to Dingo Dell.
First Gigante blew aside the Strava Queen of the Mountain that Georgie Howe had set at the 2022 Tour of Bright, shaving more than two minutes off the time. Then the Movistar rider kept the pace high for the remaining four kilometres, to take first place on the stage. Katelyn Nicholson (Butterfields Racing), who has come over to cycling from rowing, was 1:42 back in second and then it was Kathryn McInerney at 3:10.
It was a performance that extended Gigante’s overall lead to 4:58 and left her heading into a new season with an encouraging show of form and an appreciation for the continued growth in the strength of Australian cycling. “A great way to kick off the summer down under,” said Gigante in a post presentation interview with race organisers.
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‘I was all in’
Plapp started the day on the back foot in the general classification, a break having ruled the day on Tawonga and, despite his staggering speed on the final…
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