Successful breakaway nets Simon Clarke stage and overall at Herald Sun Tour

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Simon Clarke (Orica GreenEdge) won Stage 2 of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour after a long day in the breakaway which was trimmed down to three riders on the Cat 1 climb of the day up Mt Alexander. The break of Clarke, Cam Wurf (Cannondale) and Jack Haig (Avanti) worked with Clarke knowing that at the finish line in Bendigo was the race lead and a stage win. Clarke kicked away in the final 100m to give himself enough time to celebrate.

"That was a very hard day out there. We just had to try to give it to Garmin, yesterday Hassy was just so strong. Cam Meyer and I tried to one-two him but he was just all over us and then he beat us in the sprint so we really had to go out on the front foot and put them on the back foot and we managed to do that," Clarke explained.

"The group through the day was working ideally so on the climb, Mt Alexander, we had to try and buy a lottery ticket and fortunately Cam Wurf was there and he's just as strong as an ox so I said to the other boys when we were near to the top to wait for him and as you saw, he was great value to that breakaway and just about the reason we stayed away."

After seeing Nathan Haas claim both the stage and overall honours yesterday while they missed out, Clarke explained that GreenEdge were hungy to make amdends. "Our strategy was to isolate Garmin as much as possible and yesterday we weren't able to achieve that and Haasy kind of made us look silly. Today we managed it and proved that if you don’t give up and just keep at it, you can achieve the game plan."

The days group at its peak contained 17 riders which then lost one man and with 16 out in front their lead reached a maximum of just over three minutes. As the race approached Mt Alexander it was clear the days big climb as going to witness the tactical moment of the day.

"It was such a big group, there wasn't a huge lot of cooperation but that's usually the case with a big break like that. I had Mitch Docker there and his job was to make sure that the breakaway was there at the base of Mt Alexander," Clarke said.

"I really have to thank him, he did an awesome job and managed to set it up for me and I attacked on the climb and made sure I didn't try to go solo but just break it down so there was a couple of us who could commit and who better than Cam and Jack Haig to have with us."

Jack Haig's effort netted him the best young rider and third place on gc which he should hold onto as a proven climber so Arthur's Seat shouldn't eject him from claiming another white jersey after success at the Tour Down Under. "There are always ambitions for yellow but it'd be nice to get another white jersey under the belt and put on the resume to hand out," Haig said.

"I've definitely got a good chance at the podium and I'd like to think that I have a small change to take yellow but it will be so hard to take it off a class bike rider like Simon."

On whether Arthur's Seat suits his chances of claiming the overall, Haig said "To tell you truth, I've never actually done it so I can't really answer that question."

Clarke however is in the prime position for the win and will have the support of a strong team which includes two-time winner Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) who is now likely to play a super domestique role.

"You see the honour roll and I'd love to have my name on it so we're working hard and hopefully we still have the yellow jersey on Sunday. All the boys are awesome and we saw what a great job Mitch did today and I've had my fair share of doing a job and hopefully they can repay me this week," Clarke said.

 The day's hot racing action
Once the flag dropped to start racing, the pace of the peloton was quickly in the region of 60km/h with riders trying to get off the front and form the day's break. A large group with representations by GreenEdge, Drapac, Cannondale, Garmin, Jayco Australian U23 team, UnitedHealthcare as BudgetForklifts were driving the pace back in the main bunch.

The intermediate sprint points were claimed by Drapac duo Lachlan Norris (Drapac) who took out the first KOM points on offer and then claimed the points at the second intermediate sprint point and with Jonathan Cantwell who had mopped up at the first intermediate point.

As the leading riders went up Mt Alexander the break had a gap of 1:10 back to the bunch. Several couldn't handle the increase in pace that Clarke was setting and with the KOM ahead Thomas Hamilton cleaned up the maximum points on offer to strength his lead in the classification but once the riders made the ascent it was just Clarke, Haig and Wurf who worked together to the line and kept their lead of 1:10 rocketing the trio to the top of the gc.

Garmin were at the head of affairs trying to pull back the one minute lead the three man had made for themselves. Glen O'Shea was one of the rider to try his luck in the closing km of the race to no avail and Garmin were getting no help from GreenEdge or Cannondale who both riders ahead making it a foregone conclusion that Clarke would be the big winner on Stage 2

Tomorrow's stage is to be moved forward to a 9:30am start due to extreme heat that Victoria is currently facing. 

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