Santos Festival of Cycling: Baker wins stage 4 as teammate Gigante secures overall

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Georgia Baker (Team Garmin Australia) won the final hot and hectic stage of the Santos Festival of Cycling, wrapping up the criterium while teammate Sarah Gigante made it safely to the finish line to comfortably take overall victory at the 4-day National Road Series event. 

Team Garmin Australia were always among the favourites to win the one hour criterium at the 1.1 kilometre Victoria Park circuit, as the team of the overall winner was also stacked with Australian track talent. That’s why Gigante, secure in her lead of the general classification, instead became a workhorse on the final stage of the four-day National Road Series tour.

“What a perfect day. It was so so cool. We were hoping to finish it off today strong,” said the 20-year-old Australian rider who won the tour with a gap of 3:12 to Lucy Kennedy (Team Bike Exchange).

“We were trying to keep the bunch under control, we knew we had some awesome sprinters and that was pretty much the ideal scenario. I tried my best, I’m not the best crit rider but I wanted to help pay them back for all their wonderful work this week,” said Gigante.  

Team Garmin Australia made the most of those efforts, adding a third stage victory to Gigante's overall title and two stage wins.

“Given the heat and the really hard conditions today we weren’t sure how we would go,” said Baker who said they had decided to make the call on the road about whether her or Annette Edmondson would go for the final sprint. “I am just so happy. I feel so honoured to have had my track girls lead me out. I couldn’t have asked for a better lead out in the entire world so it was just awesome.”

“We came together at the beginning of the week not having worked together much and by the end of the week it is like we have been working together all year,” said Baker.

Roseman-Gannon sprinted to second behind Baker, with stage 1 winner Peta Mullens (Roxsolt LIV Sram) in third. That second place and time bonuses from the intermediate sprints meant Roseman-Gannon comfortably retained her third position on the overall and even got close to threatening Kennedy’s second place, finishing only one second behind.

How it unfolded

Riders on the exposed Victoria Park track were desperately trying to keep cool any way they could with ice vests and stockings filled with ice cubes shoved down the back as the temperature hovered around 40 degrees. The wind too was set to add to the degree of difficulty, with the flags on the side of the course flying and the sight of a billowing plume of smoke rising off in the distant hills of the bushfire prone area. 

When they took off from the line the ever-aggressive individual rider, Alana Forster went straight to the front leading out the peloton as they braced for an hour of hot racing. The speed ebbed and flowed, with some small digs at the head of the race and riders falling off the back when the accelerations came but it was the intermediate sprints the riders were mainly saving their reserves for.

At the bell to indicate the first of four intermediate sprints the group wound up the pace but with teammate Alexandra Martin Wallace providing a powerful lead out for Ruby Roseman-Gannon (ARA Pro-Racing Sunshine Coast) there was no real competition. The young rider swept up the top points and 3 second time bonus with ease, both crucial to Roseman-Gannon as at the start of the stage she was just two seconds ahead of Nicole Frain (Sydney Uni Staminade) on the overall and was equal with Gigante in the competition for the sprint jersey.

Right before the second intermediate sprint with 15 laps to go Chelsea Holmes (Giant Racing Team) took off out the front to take maximum points while Roseman-Gannon secured second just ahead of Frain. As the third approached Amber Pate was off the front on her own, but was more interested in grabbing a bottle of water than trying to grab the points so got swept up before the line and Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) took maximum points. The fourth, at five laps to go, ended up going to Kelly Fettes (Butterfields Racing) but by now the focus in the peloton was squarely shifting toward that final line.  

Team Garmin Australia started flexing their muscles with an impressive train led by Gigante. Other riders tried to infiltrate but ultimately the team managed to placed Baker where she needed to be before the tricky run into the line so she could respond to the charge of Mullens and Roseman-Gannon and take victory on the final stage.

Roseman-Gannon’s second added to her lead in the sprint classification, which meant that at least one of the individual jerseys went to some one other than Gigante. Not surprisingly Team Garmin Australia also won the team classification.