Jesse Kerrison delivers Adelaide Tour stage win for BudgetForklifts

Image 1 of 2

Jesse Kerrison (Budget Forklifts) showed that his team have several strings to their bow in taking out line honours in Stage three’s 62km criterium around Adelaide ahead of yesterday's stage winner Brenton Jones (Avanti Racing) and Angus Tobin (Search2Retain).

Cameron Peterson (Peloton Sports/Turramurra Cyclery Racing) and Oliver Kent-Spark (Search2Retain) broke free from the peloton and almost stole the stage only being swept up by the chasing bunch with one lap left to race.

Brodie Talbot kept his Tour lead at  24 seconds to Drapac’s Wes Sulzberger and is a further 44 seconds in front of New Zealand’s Keagan Girdlestone (Lightsview) with one stage remaining,  a 82km kermesse in Newton.

"It's the first NRS Tour of the year for me and I always try and come out of each Tour with something," Talbot said after the stage.

"To keep Brodie in the jersey would have been enough for me, but to win today is just the icing on the cake. It’s been a great Tour for Budget forklifts. We had a bit of an "iffy" moment on the first day, but I think we’ve shown that we’re one of the best teams in the series.

"We always knew Drapac would be trying the steal some seconds back from Brodie today, so we went in with a plan to keep together to keep Brodie safe and we knew if we could do that we’d be right. From the start we got on the front, rode a tempo, never panicked and it work out fine."

For BudgetForklifts, it was a good job done as Talbot kept his lead and all but ensured the overall victory.

"The team did an amazing job from the start. I knew we had the strength and the numbers to just keep me out of trouble. Everything just went to plan today and for Jesse to get the stage win just made it even better," Talbot said.

Women's Stage 3

Kendelle Hodges (Jayco/Apollo/VIS) broke free from the peloton after just four of 22 laps of a 1.91km city centre circuit to finish the race over one minute ahead of the bunch to claim the win.

Track world championship medallist Annette Edmondson (SASI) and Shannon Malseed (Holden Women's Cycling) sensed the danger in letting Hodges go and attempted in vein to bridge the gap but the pair were eventually absorbed by the peloton to contest for the minor placings.

Edmondson won the sprint for second place while 2012 series champion Ruth Corset (Holden Women’s Cycling) rounded out the podium in third place.

Hodges' efforts moved her from 13th to third place overall as well as picking up the Queen of the Mountain and Sprint jersey’s with one stage remaining.

Stage two victor Felicity Wardlaw (Bicycle Superstore) retained her race lead by 25 seconds to Corset with Hodges a further 54 seconds behind.

"I didn't expect that at all, I went pretty early and our main aim was to keep Tessa in the KOM and try and move her up to 3rd in GC, so I thought if I could get a little gap it was only going to put pressure on the other teams and ended up staying away which was great," Hodges said after her satge win

"Kendelle wasn't necessarily a huge threat to us on GC, but when it got out to 1.30 that's when we got a little nervous," Wardlaw said.

"Holden had a similar plan to us and I was sticking to Ruth like glue and was mindful that she probably wanted the KOM jersey and she was very good at counter attacking off the KOM lap so I knew that I had to be on the ball then and go when she went. I had a really good team backing me up today that’s for sure."

Results