WorldTour teams again put to the sword as MTN Qhubeka's van Rensburg edges Cooke in Geelong

Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg has won a bunch sprint on the finish line in Geelong to claim the second stage of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour. The MTN - Qhubeka rider pipped pre-race GC favourite Baden Cooke (Saxo Bank - SunGard) and Genesys young gun Steele Voff on the slight rise to the finish.

Twenty-two-year-old van Rensburg had been one of the aggressors on stage 1 and so sat sixth overall, 32 seconds off the pace from Pollock. Thank to the 10 second bonus the South African earned at the finish, van Rensburg now moves into fourth place, 22 seconds behind the lead.

Just like Pollock, van Rensburg rated the stage win in Geelong the best result of his career "by far". Earlier this year, van Rensburg won two stages of the Tour du Maroc, while last season he won the opening stage of the Tour of Rwanda.

"This is my first win out of Africa, I'm very happy," he told reporters at the finish line. "I was feeling really good all day, I was in [the] break yesterday and I was a bit jetlagged. I had a good night's rest and felt brilliant."

Though more than a few riders were taken by surprise by the six per cent gradient of the final kilometre, van Rensburg relished the challenge having enjoyed a good night’s rest in Ballarat.

"That last kilometre or so was quite steep and that suits me perfectly," he explained. "My team-mates took me from 40th to 10th and when I kicked, I knew there was no-one on my wheel, so it was perfect.

"For the past couple of weeks in South Africa we've been riding so well together, it's 100 per cent commitment."

Stage one winner Rhys Pollock (Drapac) maintained his lead on general classification with today’s result untroubling to the top three, while van Rensburg moved into equal third in the points classification following his win today.

"This is a bit of a surprise," Pollock said after learning he would again be wearing yellow on stage 3. "Our intention wasn't to keep the lead. We had a few teams trying to intimidate us into doing the work but we stuck to our guns."

"Darren [Lapthorne] and Adam [Phelan] stayed with me and brought me back when I dropped back, although we never got behind by more than 200 metres. And Stuart Shaw was doing a great job up the front.

"When we got to the last 50km, we decided to have a go to keep the jersey," Pollock said.

"I am not really sure that we can keep it though – we will see how we go. I have got some fantastic teammates who have shown today they can stay with me and bring me back.

"We will see what happens. It is just great for the team. Our team director will be sitting in the car sticking his chest out, I am sure."

Budget Forklift’s Chris Jongewaard was voted the race’s most aggressive rider following his efforts in the day’s long breakaway with Tim Gudsell (Pure Black Racing). Jongewaard, in his first race for the domestic outfit, took the lead of the KOM classification ahead of Pollock, Gudsell and Adam Hansen who are all tied for second.

How it unfolded

The peloton seemed eager to leave Australia’s mining history behind, reaching a speed of around 70 kilometres an hour soon after departing the open-air museum of Sovereign Hill enroute to Geelong. The race then moved onto roads familiar to many, the Australian Road Championship course at Mt. Buninyong with Omega Pharma-Lotto’s Adam Hansen attacking on the first KOM of the day, claiming not only the points over Luke Roberts (Saxo Bank-SunGard) and Cameron Wurf (Australian National Team) but also a slight gain on the peloton.

Ahead of the day’s first sprint, and after the field had been split ever so slightly several times but constant attacking, Drapac’s Darren Lapthorne and Pure Black’s James Williamson made their move, but only gained a maximum of 20 seconds on the peloton before being reeled in.
The pace slowed to 40km/h and despite skirmishes off the front by Baden Cooke (Saxo Bank – SunGard), Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervelo), Pat Shaw (Genesys) and Roman Van Uden (Pure Black) the race was once again all together following an hour of racing.

It was only at the midway point that the peloton decided to let someone go, with Van Uden’s teammate Tim Gudsell, somehow ‘rolling’ away.

"I did initiate it [the break] in the end, but I didn’t mean to," he told Cyclingnews. "I was sitting top 10 on GC a couple of minutes down, slipping into a big break would have been ideal but I’d been following all the moves and looking after myself and making sure I was in good position. I was getting a little bit itchy to want to have a go but then I literally rolled off the front. I couldn’t have taken it any easier to get into a breakaway like that."

Chris Jongewaard was the only rider to follow Gudsell, a bit of a change from the start of the day when the Budget Forklifts rider had struggled to stay in touch with the main bunch.

"I thought, see how it goes, I just needed to get the legs moving so it was probably a good idea at the time," the 32-year-old Australian cross country national champion told Cyclingnews. It’s the first major stage race riding for Budget Forklifts, having left his former domestic road team Jayco-2XU in August before reuniting with the Milka-Trek mountain bike team in Europe.

"It was enough to hurt you [today]," Jongewaard said. "Two guys out there for the good part of the day it was maybe 100km or a little bit less, 90km, it starts to wear down on you. In some ways it was good to be in the break because from what I heard it was a little bit difficult back in the bunch."

The pair built a lead of around six-and-a-half minutes, giving Gudsell the virtual lead but by the time they reached the final KOM of the day, their advantage was down to 2:30.

"We were feeling it on those climbs and the guys in the peloton who had fresh legs were just able to rip time out of us,” Gudsell explained. “I knew it was inevitable after that."

The gap hovered around the minute mark for much of the race into Geelong before Gudsell and Jongewaard were finally caught five kilometres out from the finish.

"From the profile, we sort of thought that the last 50km was all downhill," the Kiwi explained. "If we had downhill tailwind with a few minutes, there’s nothing stopping you. So it was a little bit disappointing."