Donnelly earns biggest win of his career in Bendigo

Aaron Donnelly (Huon-Genesys) has won stage 1 of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour having spent almost the entire 147.7kms at the front of the race. In a three-man race to the finish line after a full lap of the Bendigo Velodrome, Donnelly outsprinted Calvin Watson (Jayco-VIS) and Josh Atkins (Gray's Online / New Zealand National Team) with just over four hours of racing complete.

The 21-year-old's stage win was good enough to catapult him into the overall lead of the race, having finished just six seconds off the pace of Jordan Kerby (Suzuki-Bontrager) in Thursday's prologue in Williamstown.

Donnelly looks to be making a habit of getting results in tough, windy conditions, having finished as runner-up in last year's iconic Melbourne - Warrnambool Classic. He was struggling to take in his victory as he waited to pull on the yellow jersey.

"I'm a bit spent and a bit emotional as well," the Wollongong native said. "It's my first win in a long time." It was 2010 to be precise, riding with Jayco-AIS at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt U23 winning the team time trial alongside Michael Matthews, Rohan Dennis, Luke Durbridge, Michael Hepburn and Richard Lang.

As the leading trio rode in to the velodrome, the temperature gauge read 46 degrees with hot, blustery conditions punishing the riders despite race organisers moving the start in Sunbury two hours earlier than initially scheduled. So physically demanding were the conditions on Friday that the last sizeable group of riders, led by Orica-GreenEdge's Matt Goss, who is at the Sun Tour with the Australian National Team, finished 34 minutes after Donnelly crossed the finish line. The last rider to finish, mountain bike specialist Dan McConnell (Suzuki-Bontrager) was another three minutes in arrears.

Overnight leader Kerby finished over two minutes behind Donnelly. The new man in yellow was hoping to hold on for as long as he can, with the event set to conclude on Sunday on Arthurs Seat. Donnelly holds a 14 second lead over Watson with time bonuses awarded.

"We've got a really strong team. We'll just see what happens," he said.

How it unfolded...

The 108-man peloton left Sunbury with plenty of jostling for position as soon as the 3.9km neutral zone ended.

Alex Malone (Satalyst Giant) was persistent in his attacks, and would eventually earn the title of the day's Most Aggressive Rider, but it took him a good 15km to get his break to stick. Malone was joined by defending champion Nathan Haas (Australian National Team), Calvin Watson (Jayco-VIS), Aaron Donnelly (Huon-Genesys), Neil Van Der Ploeg (search2retain), (Brock Roberts (Target Trek), Tom Palmer (Drapac), Campbell Flakemore, Damien Howson (Degani Bakey Cafe World Tour Academy), Mike Northey (Gray's Online / New Zealand National Team) and Chris Jory (GPM Data#3) with the first KOM at beautiful Category 1 Mount Macedon of the day on the horizon.

Close to six kilometres in length, Macedon was a challenging test early on with the KOM point greeting the riders after 33.5km of racing. About halfway up, it got particularly nasty with two kilometres worth of climbing at 13%. The peloton was trailing by 3:40 and strung out 250 metres.

Haas was first man over the top, followed by Jory, and Watson. On the descent, things didn't go so smoothly for the defending champion, dropping his chain as he neared the bottom. He recovered quickly however, and was soon back with the lead group as the peloton's downhill chase reached 70km/h, closing the gap to 1:58.

With a sprint point ahead, that pretty much meant that the breakaway's game was up but Donnelly took the honours ahead of Van Der Ploeg and Haas.

Simon Gerrans (Australian National Team) was leading a chase group that included yellow jersey Jordan Kerby (Suzuki Bontrager). Malone took that as his cue to say adios and he was off the front of the race yet again with Northey and Watson for company.

Twenty-two riders, split between two chase groups, would trail the leading trio, before deciding it was better to work together to bridge the gap that hovered around the minute mark, after 52km of racing.

Malone, Atkins, Northey, Roberts, Watson, Donnelly and Linfield came together as one lead group and with 50km of racing remaining, the breakaway was looking reasonably comfortable despite the testing conditions. The gap hit its peak at 6:08 and the Australian team was on the front of the peloton looking to close it down. Just under 30kms to go, the breakaway's advantage was being gradually pegged back to 3:51 just as temperatures moved into the officially sweltering category of 40 degrees.

Donnelly took out the second sprint of the day ahead of Malone and Atkins, ensuring he would lead that competition at day's end. Shortly after, race radio reported that Stuart O'Grady (Australian National Team) having done his usual solid effort at the front of the bunch was hovering at the rear of the peloton. Meantime, the gap was under three minutes with the Category 4 climb up One Tree Hill to come and likely to produce a final selection.

Donnelly, now close to certain he would be wearing the yellow jersey at the end of the day, wanted to be sure and so, with Watson and Atkins, took off just ahead of the ascent with a little over 10kms left to race.

With Watson in particular a capable sprinter, Donnelly really pushed himself as soon as he headed into the velodrome.

"I did a lot of work coming into the finish because I knew that it was kind of on me," he explained. "I knew I'd take the yellow jersey. I knew that leading out would be the best thing."

Atkins never challenged for the win on the final straight and although Watson pushed Donnelly, he was genuinely happy with his runner-up placing.

"It was such a tough day out there," Watson said. "I came into the last 20km and I was just using all my reserves to stick with the guys.

"Aaron won and he deserved to win because he was by far the strongest guy there today. He committed with 10km to go and just rode his heart out for the yellow jersey. I'm happy for him."

The Jayco Herald Sun Tour continues on Saturday with a 146.6km stage between Mitchelton Winery at Nagambie to Healesville. Cooler conditions are expected with a top temperature of around 30 degrees.

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