Brendan Johnston (Giant Australia) and Courtney Sherwell are the first two entries in a new chapter of Melbourne to Warrnambool cycling history, delivering the fastest finishing times in the elite men’s and elite women’s categories of Australia's newest gravel event, the 246km Dirty Warrny.
Johnston, the 2020 winner of the Melbourne to Warrnambool road race and reigning Australian gravel champion, took victory with a time of 7:20:27 after distancing his companions in a leading trio as he came toward the line. Curtis Dowdell (Butterfields) came second and Mark O’Brien (InForm TMX Make) third.
Johnston, Dowdell and O’Brien had set themselves up for the podium positions when they caught and overhauled Jensen Plowright (Groupama-FDJ Continental) and Jack Aitken (Pana Organic x Pedla), who had struck out in the early kilometres of racing and held out the front beyond the final feed zone at 164km into the racing.
There was no close finish in the elite women's category for Sherwell, who had carved out a ten-minute gap on her nearest rival Kate Kellett by the top of the Norman Track climb at 77km into the event. By the time she reached the finish line on the Warrnambool foreshore, 8:32:13 after setting out from the Mt Duneed Estate near Geelong, her gap to second-finisher Kellett had extended to nearly 40 minutes. Lisa Jacob came third, a further nine minutes back.
Sherwell is no stranger to gravel racing, or for that matter, the Melbourne to Warrnambool, having ridden the National Road Series Women's Warrnambool Cycling Classic earlier this year.
Still, the Dirty Warrny was a completely different experience to the 155.7km race on the road and also to most Australian gravel races which usually hover around 100km long. Sherwell had never ridden as far as 246km before or spent as long on the bike.
"I didn't know how my body was going to react, how I was going to cope, whether or not the nutrition plan I had was going to be efficient,” Sherwell told Cyclingnews after the win. “It was just a lot of unknowns because I've never done it before, which also made it quite exciting."
It was, however, when the 34-year-old was in known territory during that first 100km that her difficult patch came, as after the QOM point on Norton track it still took a while before the relief of a true descent kicked in.
The impact was perhaps felt even more because she had not only gone out hard to try and hold firm in a large group of elite men after the mass start but also decided to push on through the first feed zone. She was instead waiting for the second at more than 100km into the event for her first stop, a strategy planned in September after she came third at the Beechworth round of the UCI Gravel World Series after losing touch with two key rivals while replenishing at a feed zone.
"Once we managed to stop at the second feed zone I sort of got a bit of a second wind and I was happy to continue to roll turns with the guys and keep pushing the group along," said Sherwell. "The longer that I couldn't see another female coming behind me, the more I had that energy to keep going and keep pushing so I actually think the last hundred kilometres was probably the best I felt the whole race."
The times were faster than may have been expected in the lead into the event, with Victoria having been subject to ample rain and flooding, but the return of fine Southern Hemisphere spring weather dried out roads helping keep the speed up, as did a tail win at the start of the race. A solid group of riders all came over the line within eight hours, retired WorldTour professional Mitch Docker was the last of those in the elite men's category to fall under the mark as he came over the line in 16th.
In the shorter 140km event from Forrest to Warrnambool Fiona Morris was first in the women’s elite category, with Stephanie Hibburt second and just behind was Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope), just returning from an end-of-season break to start the build toward a new year. In the elite men, 18-year-old Harry Willen delivered the quickest time, with Wayne Collins next and then Elliot Smith. However, it was sport category riders Eddie Worrall and Matt Burchell who actually posted the quickest times over the 140km, coming over the line together at 4:11:26, more than 12 minutes ahead of Willen.
The inaugural edition of the gravel Dirty Warrny – an event which is something of a throwback to the early days of the Melbourne to Warrnambool race which started in 1895 – was 84% unsealed and included over 3,000m of climbing.
After leaving from near Geelong the riders went through Deans Marsh, toward the lush forest of the Otways, with the key climb starting just over 70km into the race. Then it was onto the mountain bike town of Forrest, which also marked the start of the 140km event.
On leaving the Otways riders went through the town of Simpson, over the rolling hills of the Heytesbury and into Timboon before finishing on the foreshore of the coastal Victorian city of Warrnambool. The event has filled a hole in Australia's gravel calendar, adding a longer-range option that organisers are hopeful is a gravel monument in the making.
