Gordon takes Crocodile Trophy lead as Classens wins stage 3

The Netherlands' Bart Classens took his second stage win in a row on stage 3 of the 2019 Crocodile Trophy on Monday, while South African Alan Gordon became the new race leader, taking over from Australian home hope Michael England.

Classens won the third stage from Ringer's Rest to Wondecla by a convincing 2:49 over Brandan Marquez Fernandez of Spain, with Gordon taking third place, 3:38 behind the winner, and England finishing fourth, another 2:22 back.

"I'm happy with almost three minutes of a gap to second place today. I hope that I can make up a bit of time from now on in the general classification," said Classens in a race press release, with the Dutchman having lost over 14 minutes on the opening stage on Saturday.

He now sits in fourth overall, 8:52 down on new leader Gordon, who leads England by 1:56, with Marquez Fernandez third, just ahead of Classens and 8:16 behind Gordon.

"I don't know anyone here, and so I sort of had an aim to finish in the top three, but I wasn't sure if that was feasible," said the new race leader.

"It's my first time in Australia, and while plenty of my mates have spoken about doing the Croc, I decided to actually sign up. It seemed like a really cool race to do," Gordon said.

The MTB stage race's sole elite women's competitor, Austria's Angelika Tazreiter, finished 10th on the stage, and is now 12th on the overall classification.