Van Baarle wins Jayco Herald Sun Tour

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Team Sky's Dylan van Baarle took the overall title at the 2019 Jayco Herald Sun Tour in Melbourne on Sunday, finishing safely in the peloton as up at the front his teammate Kristoffer Halvorsen took the bunch sprint for victory on the final stage, capping off a wonder-week for the British WorldTour team in Australia, where they won two stages and every category bar the points competition.

Sky came away from a month in Australia with almost a full house in their final race, where they won the overall classification with Van Baarle, two stages through Halvorsen and Owain Doull, and the mountains jersey through Christian Knees, with Pavel Sivakov as best young rider, and the overall teams prize. Only the sprints competition – won by Team BridgeLane's Ayden Toovey – eluded them.

An early six-man breakaway, made up of Sapura's Jesse Ewart and Ben Dyball, Alistair Donohue (Pro Racing Sunshine Coast), James Whelan (EF Education First), St George Continental's Ryan Cavanagh and Damien Howson (Mitchelton-Scott), was joined at the halfway mark of the final stage by two more riders – Whelan's EF teammate Mitch Docker and Trek-Segafredo's Ryan Mullen – and kept the bunch at bay, which was led by Sky, with sterling work from Kenny Elissonde, in particular, who pegged their lead and later brought it back with the help of Knees.

It was all over for the break on the final lap of the 4.05km circuit around Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens, covered 22 times, with the stiff climb of Anderson Street to negotiate each lap, and it was left to Sky to deliver Halvorsen to the line, where he beat Mitchelton's Dion Smith and Brenton Jones (KordaMentha Australian Team).

"The team did a great job, and we always had pretty good control," Sky's Norwegian sprinter said. "I just had to stay on Owain Doull's wheel, and he took me to the line. He did a really good job at the end, and with 150 metres to go, he swung off, and I tried to be the first man over the line, and I'm really happy that I could be.

"My start here in Australia last year was really bad, when I crashed in the criterium at the Tour Down Under," he continued, "so it's been a completely different start this year, and it's really good to have got through these two races [TDU and Sun Tour], and getting a win is really nice for my confidence.

"We came here with the plan of trying to win stages, and then to go for the overall with Kenny or Dylan. We knew we were up against two really strong climbers here in Richie [Porte] and Michael [Woods], so we had to do something yesterday [stage 4], and it went perfectly to plan. So winning two stages and the overall has been really good."

Van Baarle's overall win was built first on stage 2, where he finished the day fifth overall, 33 seconds behind race leader Woods, and then the Dutchman went on the attack on Saturday's fourth stage to Arthurs Seat, where he finished second on the stage and took the overall lead.

"The boys did an amazing job today. Actually, all week they rode really well. It was still pretty hard today, and the guys said that they suffered a bit," said Van Baarle, on a day when temperatures reached 38C. "But we wanted to win the stage as well, and Kristoffer delivered."

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