Herald Sun Tour: Travis McCabe wins stage into Mitchelton Winery

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Travis McCabe kicked off his first season at UnitedHealthcare in perfect style as he sprinted to victory on stage 3 of the Herald Sun Tour. Orica-Scott's Mitch Docker hit out early but slipped to second with Aqua Blue Sport's Leigh Howard completing the top three.

Billed as the only sprint stage of the race, the technical finale into Mitchelton Winery was complicated by the late catch of the breakaway with two big crashes decimating the field. An earlier decision by commissaires to award the same finish time for the bunch at the 3km to go banner ensured no time losses for the GC men.

Orica-Scott's Damien Howson retained his overall lead of 38 seconds to Jai Hindley - one of the rider's to crash - while the position of Team Sky's Chris Froome remains unchanged at sixth, 1:12 back.

"It was hairy, it got really crazy in those last few kilometres but I put all my faith and trust in the guys and everyone rode really well. They kept me safe and out of trouble and I came into that right hand turn onto Mitchelton road probably third wheel and there was a bit of crosswind there," McCabe said of the run-in.

"Orica just went as fast as they could with the two guys and Mitch pretty much attacked, punched out I guess, at 200 metres to go and I knew I had the legs so I went as soon as he did and held it to the line with a fairly decent gap, I am really happy."

Team Sky's Danny van Poppel and JLT Condor's Brenton Jones were two of the sprinters to fall in the final with McCabe's director sportif Hendrik Redant explaining that he would have preferred to see his rider test himself against the best in the Herald Sun Tour bunch. A view that McCabe agreed with when put to him.

"The crash was unfortunate. It came down to a sprint but a lot of guys weren't really there for it because of that crash so it would have been nice to see how my legs hold up against the true sprinters," he said. "I got a little bit of a chance in the crit that we had at Cadel’s race but that was the very first race back. Unfortunately, we don't have any more sprint days left so we'll have to wait until the next race."

With the decision to award the finishing time to all riders caught up the crashes, tomorrow's final day circuit around hilly Kinglake will decide the overall standings and the 2017 Herald Sun Tour champion.

"Once again, the team was fabulous and supported me all through today and essentially didn't have to ever go too hard," said Howson. "They were always sheltering me and that is the amazing team I have around me and we'll be up for it tomorrow and hopefully this time tomorrow the success continues and I'll have this jersey to keep."

How it unfolded

103 riders rolled out of Benalla to get stage 3 underway and start the 167.7km jaunt to Nagambie's Mitchelton Winery. The trend of aggressive starts to the Herald Sun Tour road stages in 2017 continued with numerous teams attempting to send riders up the road and initiate the breakaway.

With a flat and straight 27km road before any turns were made, the breakaway had no natural features to help their cause. Following a glut of individual riders rolling the dice, a group of 16-riders that included Froome and race leader Howson got given the all clear from the peloton. Realising the danger of letting a break go that contained Froome and Howson, the peloton chased them down 25km in as speeds hit 60km/h.

A seven-man group of Jeroen Meijers (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij), Adrian Hegyvary (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling), Darcy Ellerm-Norton (St George Continental Cycling Team), Drew Morey (Drapac–Pat's Veg), Dylan Sunderland (NSW Institute of Sport), Pavel Brutt (Gazprom-RusVelo), and Hamish Schreurs (New Zealand National Team) were next to have a crack 32km in and quickly pull out 20 seconds on the peloton.

Behind them, Mario Vogt (Attaque Team Gusto), and Anthony Giacoppo (IsoWhey Sports SwissWellness) joined in the chase with Aaron Gate (Aqua Blue Sport) a late attacker. The peloton took a nature break and let the seven riders go clear by two-and-a-half minutes as Gate and Giacoppo made the bridge. Jesse Ewart (7 Eleven Roadbike Philippines) and Vogt were in the middle, 40 seconds off the leaders and would give up the chase soon after

Coming into Violet Town after 50km of racing, the nine-man breakaway had 3:38 over the Sky and Orica-Scott controlled peloton.

The advantage began to diminish as the peloton trimmed the lead to 3:23. Passing through Locksley, the gap continued to fall with Sky setting a fierce tempo to shave another minute off the lead. Crosswinds had several riders off the back with the gap at two minutes with 22km to race.

Sky continued to shave down the lead, decreasing the advantage to under a minute with 15km to go and in touching distance of the second intermediate sprint point as the break splintered down to Gate, Meijers, Giacoppo, Sunderland, and Brutt.

The leaders were caught as a crash with four kilometres to go brought down numerous riders. A second crash just outside the flamme rouge brought down even more men as Michael Hepburn led Docker into the finishing straight with McCabe third. Docker couldn't hold off the fast finishing McCabe who repeated UnitedHealthcare's stage 3 via John Murphy from 2016.

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