Simon Yates ensured the Jayco Alula team ended the Tour Down Under on a high, digging deep on the final climb of Mount Lofty to surge clear and then beat Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) in the sprint to the line.
Jayco AlUla had targeted overall success with Michael Matthews and Simon Yates but after Matthews lost time on stage 2 due to a bump in the peloton and a mechanical, Vine and his UAE Team Emirates squad proved impossible to crack.
Yates managed to secure second place overall, 11 seconds down on Vine, with Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) third at 27 seconds.
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Jayco AlUla also took home the blue points jersey thanks to Matthews and ended their race on a high with that stage win.
“We came here to the Tour Down Under with a lot of ambition. We’re the only Aussie team here. I really put a lot into it. We didn’t go away with the overall, but we’re really happy with the stage win,” Yates said.
“I think that’s the best I could do. The only thing I’d change is the prologue time trial in the rain. I did the best I could there and we just tried to take the race as it came.”
Yates praised Vine and of his own teammates, who rode so hard all week, especially Matthews who was gutted to lose any chance of an overall result.
“He’s a great rider and I'm sure the home crowd is happy with an Aussie winner. That’s not the last we’ll see of him,” Yates said of Vine.
“The team has been fantastic all week, not just for me, but before Bling had his bad luck, doing all the intermediate sprints, all the sprints.
“We put a lot into this race and made a lot of sacrifices during the winter but now we can walk away with our heads held high. It’s not a holiday for us. A lot of guys are just starting their season but we came here with full commitment.”
Yates and Jayco Alula promised to take the race to UAE Team Emirates on the final stage and they did. They knew the early climbs of Mount Lofty would not split the race and so focused on making a final attack on the ascent to the line.
With more than a kilometre to go Yates surged away, was joined by Ben O’Connor (AG2R-Citroen) and then Vine, while Bilbao faltered.
Yates drove the move to the finish and still had something left to win the sprint.
“Today was our last chance, so we took it,” Yates explained.
“We were expecting an aggressive race and that’s how it went. We didn't have to do too much because the other teams were also interested in making it a hard race. We sat back and focused on the finale.
“UAE Team Emirates had a strong team and it would have been difficult to shake them earlier. With me and Bilbao on the same time, it was also a tricky situation. I didn’t want to risk losing second place.
“Then on the final climb I was just trying to go as fast as possible. I wasn’t super confident about my sprint after the huge effort I put in to open a gap, but managed to pull it off.”
