Spratt wins 2019 Women's Tour Down Under

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Australian Chloe Hosking (Ale Cipollini) sprinted to victory for the second year in a row on the final stage of the 2019 Santos Women's Tour Down Under, while Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-Scott) continued her domination of the race to claim her third overall victory in a row.

Stage one winner Letizia Paternoster (Trek-Segafredo) and Rachele Barbieri (BePink) were the first to open their sprints, before Hosking unleashed her effort and powered clear to the line.

"I am really happy with that. It is not every day you go in with a clear plan and everything goes that way, so I think we really need to savour the moment," Hosking said.

"To be honest it is not very common for me at least to win a race a second time, I feel you build the pressure up and it never really falls in to place, but we went in today my Ale Cipollini team and I went in with a really clear plan and I feel we really executed it to perfection."

After a self-described disappointing first three stages Hosking was delighted to be back on the top step of the podium.

"I had a bit of a crisis meeting with my coach [Eric Haakonssen] this morning actually just to check where things were, and if he was worried where things were. Turns out he wasn't so maybe that helped today."

Having done enough to seal the overall title, Spratt switched to a team role by leading the bunch in the final kilometre to support Sarah Roy and set her up for the sprint before celebrating her own success.

"Yeah it is just incredible I am really happy. I just said before when I sat down with my coach Gene Bates in October and he asked me what my goals were for this year and the first thing I said was win the Tour Down Under," Spratt said.

"It is really special it is hard really to say one is better than the other, each of them feels just as great and now the special thing is just how big this race is getting as well."

A warm Adelaide day greeted the riders as they set off for the final stage of the 25-lap circuit just outside the Adelaide CBD, with frequent attacks throughout the hour-long stage. With a likely sprint finish ahead, the teams of the sprinters were unwilling to give anything more than a slim advantage.

The first sprint was a hotly contested battle with Hosking taking the win ahead of fourth overall Rachel Neylan (UniSA Australia), whose two bonus seconds allowed her to move up to the final spot on the podium.

Shortly after the sprint, Neylan, Paternoster and Alice Cobb (Team Tibco -Silicon Valley Bank) were involved in a crash. All three were able to re-join the race ahead of the next lap, keeping Neylan in contention for the podium finish.

With just two points separating the top two in the sprint classification, the battle for points was hotly contested between Roy and Alison Jackson (Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank). Roy would take the second sprint and Hosking the third, before Roy sealed the jersey with fourth at the finish.

Nadia Quagliotto (Ale Cipollini) and Jaime Gunning (UniSA Australia) finished safely in the peloton to claim the Subaru Queen of the Mountains and SouthAustralia.com Young Rider jerseys, respectively.

The women's calendar now heads to the Gravel and Tar Classic in New Zealand next week before the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and Herald Sun Tour later in January, with riders from the Tour Down Under peloton competing in all three.

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