Tour of Alberta: Matthews wins stage 2 in Grande Prairie

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A day after missing the opening Tour of Alberta team time trial win by less than a second, Orica-GreenEdge sprinter Michael Matthews delivered for the Australian team during stage 2, winning a bunch kick in a photo finish ahead of Giant Alpecin's Nikias Arndt and Katusha's Alexey Tsatevich.

Matthews no doubt felt the pressure to perform as his team's sprint train delivered him into the final few hundred metres in perfect position.

He jumped off his final lead-out man's slipstream with about 200 metres to go, but he nearly mistimed the move and allowed Arndt to close in with a final surge to the line. Matthews saved his win with a last-second bike throw that pushed his tyre just ahead of Arndt's.

With time bonuses at the finish, Matthews now leads Trek Factory Racing's Marco Coledan by 10 seconds and Orica-GreenEdge's Christian Meier by 10. Bauke Mollema, race leader after stage 1, dropped to fourth in the overall standings, also 10 seconds down.

"From about five kilometres to go we took the front, and with guys like Svein [Tuft] and Luke Durbridge riding the front, there aren't too many guys in the pro peloton that can drag race two guys like that," Matthews said.

"Having another four really big team time trial guys to follow up on them, it made it quite easy for us in the end to use our horsepower to our advantage. The boys totally nailed it. We knew what we needed to do but it's another thing putting it together on the day and pulling it off, they really nailed it."

How it unfolded

As expected, the second stage of the Tour of Alberta started in on-and-off drizzle under unseasonably cool temperatures that reached a high of eight degrees Celsius. Much of the peloton bundled up in winter racing gear and thick neck warmers as riders rolled to the start line in Grande Prairie.

The stage offered riders a flat 171km race that stretched out to Beaverlodge and back to the finish line in Grande Prairie, where they completed two finishing circuits that included a short, devilish climb on Hwy 666.

Mollema arrived to the start line in the leader’s jersey, but he was tied on time with the first 10 riders after winning the opening team time trial the previous day by just 0.74 of a second over Orica-GreenEdge. Four of those riders were his own teammates, and the following five were from Orica-GreenEdge, which included their top sprinter Michael Matthews.

The stage offered time bonuses up to three seconds for each of the two intermediate sprints located in Beaverlodge (51km) and Museum (78km), and 10 seconds at the finish line in Grande Prairie.

An early breakaway set off that include Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Argon 18), Phil O’Donnell (Axeon Pro Cycling), Benjamin Perry (Silber Pro Cycling) and Thomas Vaubourzeix (Lupus Racing). The four riders gained 3:25 with just under 80km to go. Meanwhile, Benedetti captured full points, and time bonuses, at the two intermediate sprints.

Trek Factory Racing kept the breakaway riders at a manageable 2:20 with 55km to go, and the riders started shedding layers of clothing as they made their way toward the circuits.

Meanwhile, the breakaway approached the first of two finish circuits, where Perry won the first of two KOMs on the Hwy 666 climb and went on to pick up full points at the second KOM with 30km to go.

Trek Factory Racing got some help from the Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis team during the final 25km of the race. As the gap between the main field and the breakaway dropped under a minute, H&R Block’s Travis Samuel launched himself from the field to try and cross the distance to the breakaway, but he remained in no-man’s land for several kilometres before being reabsorbed into the field.

With just over 10km to go, the teams with faster sprinters emerged at the fore of the main field. Teams like Orica-GreenEdge for Michael Matthews, Bora-Argon 18 for Sam Bennett and Drapac for Wouter Wippert set up their lead-out trains as the race re-entered Grande Prairie for the run in to the finish line.

One last trip up Highway 666 in the final kilometres split things up again, with a new group of four forming that included Dion Smith (Hincapie), Daniel Eaton (Axeon), Tom-Jelte Slagter (Cannondale-Garmin) and Ryan Roth (Silber Pro Cycling). The move was short-lived, however, as Orica’s Svein Tuft picked up the chase and dragged the peloton back up to the leaders.

Orica led the bunch into the final 500 metres and a sweeping left-hand turn, with Matthews jumping up the left side of the road from two wheels back in the closing 200 metres. Arndt pulled up alongside the Orica sprinter right at the line for a photo finish.

The 2015 Tour of Alberta continues Friday with the race's first-ever mountain finish, the 181.8km stage 3 route from Grande Cache to Miette Hot Springs in Jasper National Park. The peloton will face two categorised climbs in the final 17km, the last of which is more than 5km long and averages an eight percent grade up Miette Road to the hot springs.

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