Neil Van Der Ploeg claims second Tour of Toowoomba stage win

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Avanti's Neil Van Der Ploeg started the Tour of Toowoomba with a stage win and has ended the five stage event by winning the sprint ahead of Alistair Donohoe and Ryan MacAnally. Jack Haig finished safely in the bunch to secure overall victory in what is likely to be his last NRS race for Avanti while Mark O'Brien made it one-two on GC for the team.

The withdrawal of NRS overall leader Joe Cooper from the race due to a fractured pelvis saw Tim Roe (BudgetForklifts) move up into third overall, 1:49 minutes down on Haig.

"It's good to finish the Tour in the lead," said Haig. "I got to do a fair bit of the lead out for Neil today so it was great to get him up for the win and repay him for all the hard work he did for me during the week.

"It makes it all the more special to have a teammate take out the final stage.

"After racing last season it was all still very new for me, and the whole season was really taxing," said Haig who also rode the Tour Down Under on the UniSA team. "Now that I have more racing under my belt it's a little bit easier and I'm ready to take the next step up in Europe, I'm really looking forward to that."

Haig’s next race is the UCI 2.2 Tour de Korea before he joins Australia's under 23 development team, the Jayco-AIS World Tour Academy for a stint of racing in Europe.

For Van der Ploeg, the stage win was special as he also won the final stage of the 2013 event.

"Last year it was my first ever NRS win so that was huge for me, it's pretty special to come back and do the double," said van der Ploeg.

"Having Cooper injured is a massive dampener, but it is fantastic to have Jack and Mark go one-two on the General Classification and for the team the get four of five stage wins is awesome."

Despite a late race crash in the race, Donohoe recovered to finish on the podium.

"With five laps to go I followed my teammate Oliver [Kent-Spark] to the left of the road and a rider swung into me and I bounced off Oli onto the ground," said Donohoe. "I took a lap out to replace my wheel and regain my thoughts and re-joined the bunch with a lot of adrenaline.

"I've got a third and a second place, but I haven't quite got onto that top step which will hopefully come this year."

For MacAnally, third place was just reward for his persevere after crashing out of the two previous NRS events he entered.

"It's good to find some legs on the last day, especially two days before I leave for Europe. I was fifth out of the last corner but I managed to finish third, it feels like I'm back."

MacAnally heads to Belgium to join his Bianchi DCM Arbitrage teammates for a stint of overseas racing.

Despite his withdrawing from the race due to his injury, Cooper retains his lead in the overall NRS standings Haig and Roe with Haig and Roe both 10 points in arrears.

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