Cameron Scott won the 2022 Powercor Melbourne to Warrnambool, with the ARA Sunshine Coast sprinter taking out the 106th edition of the historic Australian race with a late solo break after deciding his legs weren’t up to a bunch battle at the end of the 267 kilometre race.
The ARA Pro Racing Sunshine Coast rider held off the charging bunch which was led over the line in Warrnambool by Brenton Jones (Inform TMX Make). Myles Stewart (Nero Continental) rounded out the podium at the 6 hour and seven minute National Road Series Race.
Scott, with his track pedigree and recent run of NRS sprint victories, is a rider you would have expected to be relishing the chance to take on the group battle, but he’d handed sprint duties over to teammate Craig Wiggins five kilometres out from the line.
The 24-year-old Scott was instead covering the late breaks, when he saw an opportunity to win another way.
NRS leader James Whelan (Team BridgeLane) was trying his hand in the final couple of kilometres along with Liam Johnston (InForm TMX Make), when the on patrol Scott jumped on the wheel and then finding there was a gap and – drawing inspiration from the strikingly similar tactics of last year’s race winner Jensen Plowright – decided to try and hold out the front solo with under 2km to go.
“I knew it was possible,” Scott told the SBS race livestream while still trying to catch his breath. “I tried to get out of the saddle just the last few metres, just to keep the bike moving, I knew they were coming hard but I just had to give everything.”
Success – despite the heavy legs that led to Scott ruling himself out of the sprint – and the rider got to celebrate on the line for the third time this week after having won both stage 2 and stage 3 at the Mitchelton Tour of Gippsland.
How it unfolded
The race rolled out from Avalon Airport, with Cadel Evans firing the start gun to get the riders rolling as they settled in for approximately six hours on the bike on a mild Victorian summer day. The early break attempts weren’t given much room to move until finally at over 70 kilometres into the racing a group of eight settled and pulled the gap out to over a minute.
Cyrus Monk (Cycle House) clearly stood out from among that group as a dangerous player, with 2018’s Australian U23 champion having just returned from racing the 2.2 ranked Tour of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, where he came third overall.
The group managed at one stage to push the gap out to over five minutes, with it then falling slowly as the riders wound their way through the countryside of south-western Victoria and toward the coast. With around 100km of racing left to go it fell below five minutes and then down to close to three minutes with 80km to go.
As the kilometres ticked down and the riders had been racing for over five hours the lead group became three, with Monk joined by Aidan Buttigieg (Nero Continental) and Tim Cutler (CCS Cycling). Monk and Cutler drove the pace, swapping turns, while Buttigieg sat on the back. Meanwhile the field also began to split and reform behind and as the pressure ramped up in the chase the gap to the lead three kept shrinking until a reduced peloton finally had them in their sights.
Monk, however, kept persisting, and one attack burnt off the passenger Buttigieg and then as the field drew ominously close, and the six hour mark of the race drew near, it was first Cutler who was absorbed and then a hold out Monk. No sooner was he among the bunch than more attacks started, including that one from Whelan that set the winning move in motion.
Sunday the first stand-alone associated event for the women will take place, with the 160km Lochard Energy Warrnambool Women’s Cycling Classic starting in the lakeside Colac before touching the coast in Port Campbell and working its way to the Warrnambool finish line.
