The opening stage of the Tour of Bright on Saturday continued the tradition of throwing up surprises, with Will Cooper (St George) proving the strongest from among the break of nine that started the closing climb with a gap of around four minutes, too much for even the likes of Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) and Oscar Onley (Picnic-Post NL) to close.
“I thought that was a good opportunity to be up there and I was just lucky to have really good legs today and make the most of it,” Cooper told Cyclingnews at the top of Tawonga Gap.
Still, even with the big gap to the break at the start of the final climb two-time winner Plapp made some serious inroads as he charged up the ascent at a furious pace, setting a new KOM at a scorching 17:40, which was enough to move him up into fourth – with a 1:51 deficit to the race lead – as he caught all the break riders except Cooper and the second and third placed Team Brennan riders, Tristan Saunders and Oliver Ward, who is just 17.
Talia Appleton (Praties) was chasing not just the 90.2km stage to the top of Tawonga Gap which she cleaned up for a second year running this time with a massive 1:18 margin,. She was also after the Strava QOM that Sarah Gigante had nudged down to 20:53 in March. Appleton, who stood on the Tour de l’Avenir overall podium this year, was ever so close, missing out by a frustratingly slim two seconds.
The women’s field had hit the climb relatively intact, although a crash on the descent from Rosewhite had taken down a number of riders, some out of the race injured and others, like Sophie Marr (Praties), having a long lonely ride back once they got returned to the bike
Once on the climb the field was quickly shattered by Appleton’s…
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