Palmer adds to Drapac's win tally

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Canberra veteran Stuart Shaw outplayed his younger rivals to regain leadership of the Elgas Tour of the Murray River after a second criterium stage on Thursday.

Shaw, 32, who represented Australia twice in the world junior triathlon championships before taking up road cycling five years ago, collected 32 bonus at from intermediate sprints in the 52km afternoon criterium at the Euston Club Resort. That moved into the overall lead at the tour by 10secs from Gippslander Joel Pearson, with young New Zealander Jason Williamson 17secs back in third place.

As captain and strategist for the Drapac team, Shaw won the opening 155km road stage from Echuca to Rochester on Sunday but surrendered tour leadership to Pearson in the hectic 25.5km waterfront criterium in Echuca on Monday morning.

Trailing Pearson by 16 seconds after the crash-marred 48km criterium earlier in Robinvale, Shaw road so aggressively with a small break-away group at Euston that he smothered any impact that Pearson and his strong Genesys team had on the event.

The Euston stage was won by Thomas Palmer, who trains with Shaw in the ACT. Second place went to New Zealander Rico Rogers, with Saleh of the Malaysian national team filling the minor placing.

Despite his strong ride, Shaw was not super-confident about retaining the Elgas purple leader’s jersey until the tour ends in Mildura on Sunday afternoon. “Our team is young and damaged so we will have to ride with our brains and be clever,” he said.

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