Despite being only a matter of weeks into his first full year in the WorldTour, 21-year-old Lewis Bower (Groupama-FDJ United) took his first WorldTour podium on Friday as he sprinted to third on stage 3 of the Tour Down Under.
Bower, who has risen through the ranks with the Groupama development squad, was promoted to the WorldTour team last June, riding his first WorldTour event at the Tour of Guangxi, and at the Tour Down Under was not set to be the French team's designated sprinter.
However, the New Zealand rider was thrust into sprinting at the last moment on Friday after Tom Donnenwirth suffered a mechanical in the finale, and couldn't have asked for a much better result in a chaotic sprint. He was beaten only by winner Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) and stage 1 victor Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM).
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"It’s just unbelievable," Bower said. "After putting in so much hard work and sacrificing so much time away from my family and friends, it’s really nice to see that all the efforts I’ve made to reach the WorldTour are paying off. So to get a podium is super special and an emotional result for me."
Bower has been racing in Europe since he was a teenager, and though it's New Zealand he calls home rather than Australia, there was a slice of home in Nairne on Friday as his family were there to witness his top result.
"We’re really happy for him," Groupama DS Jussi Veikkanen said. "Lewis is young, almost racing at home, and his family was here today. These are rare opportunities for a New Zealand rider to be able to perform in front of loved ones. This great result will also give him a lot of confidence in his form, because it wasn’t an easy stage."
For much of the day, it was a different Groupama rider who was in the spotlight, with Enzo Paleni spending almost the entire 140km stage out front, only caught in the final 600 metres, but the French team were able to quickly refocus their attention in the hectic sprint.
For Bower, it was a 180-degree turn from how he'd started the day.
"He wasn’t feeling great yesterday and wasn’t very confident for today," Veikkanen said. "We’d planned to go with Tom, but he had a mechanical issue at the worst possible moment, so we told Lewis he could sprint."
Despite the lack of forewarning, Bower found almost the perfect line in the sprint, following the eventual winner Welsford in what was quite a messy battle for the line.
"Once I got the green light, I tried to stay near Ineos and Sam Welsford," he said. "I came past him on the climb with three kilometres to go because we were going really fast, then I tried to keep a good position the whole time, surfing around the lead-out trains. With about 500 metres to go, Welsford came back up with his team and I managed to get onto his wheel. I launched at 200 meters to try to come around, but I didn’t quite have the speed, so I came back into the slipstream and hung on for third place!"
With stage 4 significantly altered due to fire and heat dangers and therefore likely to be a more sprint-friendly stage than the original Willunga Hill route, Groupama will have another chance to go for a result on Saturday. After his impressive showing on stage 3, Bower can certainly hope for another shot at leadership soon.
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