Q & A with Tour of Gippsland leader Anthony Giacoppo

Stage 3 of the Tour of Gippsland saw the yellow jersey move from the shoulders of Luke Davison (Budget Forklifts) to Anthony Giacoppo (Genesys Wealth Advisers).

The Tasmanian-based team is the defending champions at the event and Cyclingnews caught up with the new general classification leader following stage 4.

Alex Malone: You won this morning's stage, how was it considering you were here last year and you know this stage is quite a tough circuit? It suits your characteristics; was the game plan going into the race to look after you? (His teammate Steele Von Hoff won the Moe criterium in 2011).

Anthony Giacoppo: The plan going into the criterium was to contest a few of the intermediate sprints and then just save myself for the finish. I remembered from last year doing the Moe criterium that once you drop back 30th or 50th wheel, that's it, there's no chance in moving up. I knew that I had to basically just stay up there and just look after myself from there. I ended up contesting quite a few more [intermediate sprints] than we originally planned but I seem to be feeling quite good and it all paid off.

AM: With two or three laps to go it looked like RBS Morgans-ATS Pro Cycling had it pretty well controlled. Were you guys just lined up behind them waiting for them to potentially burn themselves [before the finish]?

AG: Yeah, I was actually following Davo [Luke Davison] around because he's been pretty quick in the finishes as we've seen but yeah 2XU [RBS Morgans-ATS] stalled a little and some of our guys came hauling past and said 'hop on, hop on' so I just slotted in a few wheels back and they [RBS Morgans-ATS] got swamped.

AM: Looking at this afternoon's stage, last year you had Nathan Hass and Von Hoff and he won the Tour of Gippsland. Now this year you don’t have either of those riders but it seems like you have almost, along with Pat Shaw, slotted into those positions as guys the who can really ride for the general classification and for stages.

AG: Definitely. It's good to be able to do a bit of both here and there. The massively hilly tours obviously don't suit me but for Gippsland and Murray that will definitely be the role for Shaw and myself.

 

Thank you for reading 5 articles in the past 30 days*

Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read any 5 articles for free in each 30-day period, this automatically resets

After your trial you will be billed £4.99 $7.99 €5.99 per month, cancel anytime. Or sign up for one year for just £49 $79 €59

Join now for unlimited access

Try your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1