Patrick Bevin (CCC) swooped to take his first World Tour victory and claim the overall lead in Tour Down Under on Wednesday.
Bevin capitalised on confusion in the peloton sparked by a mass crash inside the final kilometre of the 122-kilometre second stage to power home in the finish.
The Kiwi unleashed a sprint on the uphill 700m finishing straight to reel in Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana) before holding off Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) and Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) at the line.
The stage win gave Bevin a 10-second time bonus, lifting him into the overall lead of the race, five seconds ahead of Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep), who won Tuesday’s stage one but could only manage seventh the next day.
Bevin holds a five-second lead over Viviani in the race general classification with Ewan in third place ahead of Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb).
Walscheid finished 23rd in Wednesday’s stage through South Australia’s famous Barossa Valley wine country in scorching temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
“I got to pick a pretty good line in the hard, draggy finish. Once Sanchez was off the front in the final it gave me the perfect springboard and I just went long,” Bevin said.
“It was definitely a gamble, you could take five seconds today and lose two minutes in three days’ time but that’s bike racing, we’re here to try to win it.”
Tour Down Under 2019 – stage 2 results (Norwood – Angaston):
| 1 | Patrick Bevin (NZl) CCC | 3:14:31 |
| 2 | Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
| 3 | Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) | ,, |
| 4 | Danny van Poppel (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 5 | Jasper Philipsen (UAE Team Emirates) | ,, |
| 6 | Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Merida) | ,, |
| 7 | Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) | ,, |
| 8 | Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana) | ,, |
| 9 | Kiel Reijnen (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 10 | Kristoffer Halvorsen (Team Sky) | ,, |
Tour Down Under 2019 – general classification after stage 2:
| 1 | Patrick Bevin (NZl) CCC | 6:34:03 |
| 2 | Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) | +05” |
| 3 | Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) | +09” |
| 4 | Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 5 | Artyom Zakharov (Astana) | ,, |
| 6 | Jason Lea (UniSA-Australia) | +10” |
| 7 | Michael Storer (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 8 | Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) | +11” |
| 9 | Jakub Mareczko (Ita) CCC | ,, |
| 10 | Jaime Castrillo (Movistar) | +12” |
