Solo ride from Peter Kennaugh lands Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race victory

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Peter Kennaugh came up trumps in the second edition of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race following an aggressive final lap of the Geelong circuit. The British national champion jumped away on the Challambra climb and held off the peloton for Team Sky's first win of 2016. Local lad Leigh Howard won the bunch sprint for second place six seconds back, after IAM Cycling worked hard for the chase as Niccolò Bonifazio crossed the line for third on his Trek-Segafredo debut.

"I have to thank Luke Rowe really. The whole race he was saying 'stay calm, stay calm'. I went up the road with just over a lap to go with a couple of riders and right away he said 'sit up, it's not going to work.' He just kept me calm during the race and said 'hit it', like Richie Porte did on Willunga, just don't look back and I did it," Kennaugh explained in a post-race television interview.

With Rafa Valls his carrot on the Challambra climb, Kennaugh bridged across then rode away from the Lotto Soudal rider as the splintered peloton was attempting to organise a chase with 12km to go. However, Kennaugh explained that once he got away, he was racing for the win.

"People go on about power all the time these days, I’m not one that likes numbers, but to be honest I’ve been doing a lot of work on that kind of stuff and I just tried to pace myself all the way to the finish and I had the legs," said Kennaugh, whose previous one-day wins both came in the British national championships. "I felt terrible for the first half of the race, but then my legs came around."

Kennaugh's win was reminiscent of his stage 1 victory at the Critérium du Dauphiné in Albertville last year, repeating his late attack to also hold off a fast finishing peloton.

"To be honest, I didn't want to look back once. I am quite an emotion rider, the littlest things if I've see them close to me, that's all it would have took for me to crack. So I just thought 'head down, don't look back until you're on the finishing straight' and that's what I did," Kennaugh added when asked if he knew of the situation behind him.

Looking frustrated as he crossed the line for second place, Howard thanked his teammates for their work before he heads back to Europe.

"I think the race was a difficult race and we did what we could with only five guys," said Howard who will next race Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan San Remo. " There were other really strong teams with seven guys and for the amount of people we had, we did everything possible. Best of the rest and hopefully the beginning of a good season."

Pre-race, it was another 'Manx Man' in Mark Cavendish who was in the headlines but after 174km, it was 26-year-old standing atop the podium with the Dimension Data man recording a DNF in his first race for the South African WorldTour team.

How it unfolded

Starting under grey skies on the Geelong beachfront, Corentin Cherhal (Team Novo Nordisk) and Koishi Yuma (Nippo-Vini Fantini) were the first riders to attack after the short 3.2km neutral zone. The duo was reeled in with AvantiIsowhey’s Pat Shaw and Sean Lake next to try and get clear as a tailwind assisted the fast start. Mitch Docker (Orica-GreenEdge) was an early casualty as he fell on his right side, tearing both knicks and jersey along with losing some skin with the high pace ensuring a tough start to a Sunday ride.

In sight of the first sprint point with 25km covered, Pat Lane continued AvantiIsowhey's aggressive start to the day as he attacked to claim maximum points. Lane was joined by BMC’s Alessandro De Marchi with Josh Berry (St George Merida) and Adrian Hegyvary (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team) bridging across to make a four-man break

With 30km covered, the peloton decided it was content with the breakaway’s composition and the quartet was quickly 2:30 minutes ahead of the road. At the 40km mark, Morgan Smith (Kenyan Riders Downunder) and Kristian House (ONE Pro Cycling) set off in chase of the break that had extended their lead to over four-and-a-half minutes over the peloton

Lane rolled across uncontested for the second intermediate sprint point with House and Smith joining the leaders, who had swelled the lead over the peloton to 6:15 minutes, after 53km of racing. Lane took maximum KOM points at Bells Beach with the race starting to move inland and back towards Geelong.

With a touch over 100km left to race, the six leaders saw their gap drop below the six-minute mark. Lotto Soudal came forward to control the peloton via Thomas De Gendt as Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) and Brodie Talbot (St George-Merida) were caught up in a fall.

The gap to the leaders continued to decrease as Docker worked away on the front of the peloton to drop it down to five minutes with 92km to go. Berry was the first of the breakaway riders to feel the strain of the day as he dropped off the front with 89km to race as the gap continued to fall with Orica-GreenEdge controlling the tempo.

Hegyvary was the next rider dropped from the breakaway with 70km to race as riders started to attack from the peloton. Adam Phelan (Drapac), Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo), Gert Dockx (Lotto Soudal) and Lachlan Norris (Drapac) all doing damage to thin the peloton and bring the gap down to 2:44 minutes.

Lane attacked his breakaway companions at the base of the KOM with De Marchi the only rider able to follow. In doing so, Lane confirmed an appearance on he podium as winner of the sprint and KOM jerseys.The duo then went clear as De Gendt was briefly caught in the middle of the break and peloton. Rohan Dennis (BMC) upped the pace to cause further selection in the peloton within 50km to race and saw a reaction from the peloton as Phelan and Mat Hayman (Orica-GreenEdge) bridged across to the BMC man.

Ahead, De Marchi and Lane’s advantage continued to fall and was under one minute with 40km to race. A chase group of 11 riders with representation from IAM Cycling, Katusha, Team Sky, Orica GreenEdge, BMC, and UnitedHealthcare then formed in pursuit of the duo.

On the penultimate lap, Lotto Soudal and Dimension Data led the peloton that was within 12 seconds of the chase group at the base of Challambra climb. The leading duo was reeled in by the chasers as Danilo Wyss then attacked with De Marchi joining his teammate.

Lotto Soudal’s Rafa Valls made a move to cause a selection that saw a group of 12 get clear with two Katusha riders coming to the front and upping the pace. Valls attacked a second time, bringing Sal Puccio (Team Sky) and Cam Meyer (Data Dimension) with him with 25km to race.

Behind, Jason Christie (Kenyan Riders Downunder), Damien Howson (Orica GreenEdge), Aleksejs Saramotins and Howard (IAM Cycling) took up the chase of the leading trio 15 seconds in arrears. Valls’ move caused further damage to the peloton, which had splintered into numerous groups on the road. As the bell rang for one final 20km circuit of Geelong, the trio led the chasers by 19 seconds and the BMC led peloton, which had organised itself on the run into the finish arch.

De Marchi was driving the peloton into Challambra, 13 seconds behind the three leaders as LottoNL-Jumbo sat in just behind the red and black of BMC. Shaw and Lane from AvantiIsowhey moved forward at the base of the climb with 13km to race as the leading trio continually checked their advantage to the peloton.

Valls was first to move on the climb as Ian Boswell and Peter Kennaugh set the tempo. As Meyer made his way back into the reduced peloton, Data Dimension was moving up Nathan Haas before Kennaugh bridged cross to Valls. At 12km to race, Kennaugh led ahead of Valls and Haas with riders scrambling to stay in the race.

Inside 10km, Kennaugh continued to lead solo with 20 seconds over a chase group of 30 riders. With little co-operation from rivals to chase down the British champion, Katusha decided they weren’t racing for second place as they made the move to the front of the group.

Pantano and 19-year-old Michael Storer (Australia) took up the tempo as Kennaugh led by 18 seconds with five kilometres to race. Adam Hansen became the final Lotto Soudal rider to launch an attack. The impetus was on Orica GreenEdge via Jack Haig to lead the chase with Kennaugh maintaining his lead into the final three kilometres. As Hansen was reeled in, IAM Cycling took up the chase for Howard before Orica-GreenEdge took over at 1.7km to go but it was all too little too late.

Under the flamme rouge and it was a foregone conclusion that Kennaugh would be raising his arms in triumph for the first time this season and first time since claiming consecutive British national titles to make it two non-Australian winners at the race named after Australia's only Tour de France champion.

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