Saw celebrates Crocodile Trophy stage 2 win in his hometown

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Today provided an emotional finish at Lake Tinaroo in Atherton for stage 2 of the Crocodile Trophy - Greg Saw, a homesick Australian, originally from Atherton and now living in Norway, not only took out the stage win in his hometown, but also took over the overall elite race lead. Milton Ramos came in second ahead of Ivan Rybarik, Cory Wallace and Jiri Krivanek. The fastest women today by about 10 minutes ahead of Imogen Smith was amateur rider Rita Estevez.

With his parents eagerly awaiting him at the finish line, Greg Saw took out today's stage win at Lake Tinaroo on the Atherton Tablelands. A brisk breeze blew across the lake as Saw crossed the line in 3:34:25 after a marathon race from Cairns through Dinden National Park and past Copperlode Dam towards the steep climb onto Mt Edith, the highest elevation of today. The gap of almost four minutes to second Ramos from Spain and yesterday's winner Rybarik was enough to even bring him the overall race lead and he will start tomorrow's third stage in the Crocodile Trophy's leader jersey.

"I really didn't expect this today - I was hoping for a good result because I wanted to do well, it's as if my life is going full-circle," said the teary-eyed 37-year old at the finish, who now resides in Norway with his wife and two children and who said that he came to the Crocodile Trophy to cure his homesickness. "I just miss the heat and I haven't been home much over the past 10 years, so when I saw that the new Atherton MTB Club was going to be part of the stage plan, I just had to come."

It seems that Saw's stage win was meant to be with many fellow elite riders suffering mechanicals. "I can't believe it - I had a flat on the exact same section of the race track as in 2012," said Rybarik, shaking his head about his now 2:30 gap in the general classification, in which he is second. Ramos is overall third with a gap of just over three minutes and Wallace dropped into fourth place - gaining a lot of time towards the end, a loose head-set on the handlebar early in today's race had forced him to stop and adjust it, loosing valuable time. Martin Blaszó from Hungary is now fifth overall.

Strong performance by amateur woman Estevez

Imogen Smith from Sydney still leads the women's field by four minutes, however, today's fastest woman was Rita Estevez from Portugal who finished then minutes ahead of Smith in 5:16:37.

The leaders' jerseys were awarded to Greg Saw and Imogen Smith in the elite categories and Ondrej Slezak remains in the Best Australian jersey. Guido Thaler defended his Austrian-leader jersey and in the amateur category Andrew Hall from Canberra will start in the Alpentour Trophy leader jersey tomorrow.

Stage 3

Tomorrow's third stage will have participants ride in neutral to Atherton's Rifle Club grounds, from which they will venture onto a 20km monster loop within the new Atherton MTB trail network. In total, three laps need to be completed on a very tight course with a lot of "Aussie-style" singletrack sections, which has riders speculating about the race favourites over dinner at Lake Tinaroo tonight.

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