Edmondson wins stage two in bunch sprint

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Alex Edmondson (Euride Racing) has won a reduced bunch sprint in Strathgordon to claim the 120km second stage of the Caterpillar Tour of Tasmania. Edmondson finished ahead of Will Walker (Drapac) and Luke Parker (VIS) to take the stage and points jersey in a dominating display that saw him spend the majority of the stage in the early breakaway.

"I don't know how I did that," Edmondson remarked. "Coming to the finish on the last climb we got caught and I thought that was it, so I went to the back of the bunch, but somehow I found some fresh legs. The boys gave me an awesome lead out to the end."

Huon-Genesys controlled the race in defence of race leader Jai Crawford by letting an early break of seven riders go up the road. The break included eventual stage winner Edmondson, Thomas Hamilton (VIS), Ben Grenda (Polygon), Malcom Rudolph (Drapac), Alex Ray (Target Trek), Darcey Woolley (African Wildlife Safari) and Alistair Donohoe (search2retain) with all riders contributing to drive the group's lead out to nearly seven minutes.

A determined chase by the Huon-Genesys team, however, kept the break in check coming into the last part of the race. Rudolph attacked solo with 25km to go and got out to nearly two minutes but was reeled in within the final kilometre with Edmondson proving too strong for those still in the peloton.

"I didn't really know what I was doing at the start, I just wanted to get out of there, so I made that little break and the boys rode pretty well," said Edmondson. "That was lucky because I lost a bit of time yesterday, meaning I could just sit on the back of the break and save my legs."

"The gap went out ridiculously fast," Edmondson continued. "We all considered what was going on back there, but we just thought Huon-Genesys were controlling it and [must have been] confident their climbers could hit it over the climbs.

"I didn't quite hold on but I had a good day out," Rudolph said post-race. "We thought we had to get a guy in the move and hopefully it would stay away and we'd get a stage win. It wasn't to be, but we all had a go," he said.

Huon-Genesys retained their top five positions on the general classification, with the leader’s jersey being passed from Jai Crawford to Nathan Earle due to a higher stage placing.

"The boys rode really well today and they're all looking really strong," Earle said. "It wasn't really the plan for me to take yellow today, but we're in it now and we'll try to defend it."

Jack Haig retains a near two minute hold on the young rider classification and Hamilton moved into KOM lead after winning both of the categorised climbs on offer throughout the stage. Huon-Genesys hold a strong 5:24 lead in the team classification ahead of Drapac Cycling, with CharterMason sitting in third, 5:36 down.

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