Santos Women's Tour: Garfoot wins stage 2

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Katrin Garfoot (UniSA Australia) has moved into the lead of the 2018 Santos Women's Tour after winning the first ever summit finish of the race atop Mengler's Hill. The world championship medallist unleashed a brutal acceleration to outsprint Lucy Kennedy (Mitchelton Scott) with defending champion Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton Scott) just behind in third.

"I had a plan. My plan was to just ride a hard pace so even if they did attack it wouldn't be a hard attack anymore because attacking on a hard pace already is rather hard," said Garfoot of her approach to the important uphill finish.

"When Lucy attacked, I was just hanging on to her wheel. I knew if I was hanging on to her I would get the stage because she is not a very good kicker. When I turned around and nobody was there I thought 'I've got this', especially as it flattens out towards the top."

In stark contrast to Thursday's opening stage, rain and an overcast sky greeted the peloton as they left Lyndoch for the 102-kilometre stage through the Barossa Valley with the conditions adding to an already difficult day.

Mitchelton Scott made use of crosswinds throughout the stage attempting to split the bunch. With the peloton at one point splitting into three groups just before the halfway point, before the wind stalled and the race was back together.

"The wet weather wasn't an issue I was pretty safe, the wind was an issue when Mitchelton put it into the gutter," Garfoot explained. "We were a bit caught by surprise, but the section wasn't very long and even if there were breaks the peloton just came back together.

A number of attacks, including from former time trial world champion Linda Villumsen (Team Virtu Cycling), proved short-lived with the wind preventing anyone getting away.

Reaching the town of Tanunda with 10 kilometres remaining and the race together, Mitchelton-Scott and Team Virtu Cycling made one last effort to break the race up with a surge of pace.

Just 30 riders remained with three kilometres to go as Annemiek Van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) and newly crowned Australian Champion Shannon Malseed (Team Tibco - Silicon Valley Bank) were the first to move.

As the field made the turn to Mengler's Hill, the group further reduced until just seven remained in contention, with Kate McIlroy (Specialized Women's Racing) and Lauren Stephens (Team Tibco - Silicon Valley Bank) joining Garfoot, Kennedy, Spratt, Van Vleuten and Malseed.

With two stages to go and just a four-second advantage, Garfoot is not getting ahead of herself and knows the race is far from over.

"We haven't thought that far ahead and taking it one day at a time,” Garfoot said of her plans for tomorrow."

Annette Edmondson (Wiggle High5) continues to lead the sprint classification, Garfoot has moved into the queen of the mountain classification and New Zealand National Team's Grace Anderson pulled on the young rider jersey.

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