Battle on the Border: Mark O'Brien wins opening stage with solo attack

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Avanti's Mark O'Brien pulled off a late attack and soloed to victory on stag one of the Battle on the Border. Teammate Jack Haig finished 20 seconds behind O'Brien and the current leader of the NRS individual standings Joe Cooper, was 12 seconds behind Haig, ensuring that Avanti claimed all three podium places on the 147km stage from Point Danger - Mt Warning.

O'Brien, who won three overall NRS tour titles in 2012, added another hilltop victory to his palmares as Avanti dominated the stage. O'Brien attacked a select group, which included Budget Forklifts duo Tim Roe and Marc Williams, with 1.5 kilometres left to climb to and continued on his own to the line.

"To win up Mt Warning is just fantastic," O'Brien said. "It definitely has a name for a reason – to warn you not to come up here but it's worked out pretty well for me today.

"It suited me down to the ground. I'm a diesel engine and once I get into the swing of things I'm right to go. I knew I had to get a gap early because if I left it to the last part of the hill, I would have been beaten by guys like Tim Roe," said O'Brien.

"The boys did an amazing job controlling everything and we were never really in any danger. We just had to show we had the climbing legs and in the end we showed we did which is fantastic."

Earlier in the race, a breakaway duo of Jake Magee (CharterMason) and Matthew Ross (Jayco/John West/VIS) had built a gap of 2:20 minutes over the peloton but were swallowed dup after 40km of racing.

Almost immediately as the duo were caught, a successful nine-man counter attack on the second king of the mountain went clear which would thin to two and eventually caught with 10km left to race.

For Roe, it was a good start to the race and he praised O'Brien's ride, stating "We gave it everything. "Coming into the finish on the climb the Avanti guys rode a pretty fierce tempo, we gave it our best but we just weren't able to hang on."