Chris Froome on 267km Melbourne to Warrnambool – 'I finished completely cross-eyed'

Most of the international peloton had been quick to depart after the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on the final weekend of January, but not Chris Froome (Israel-Premier Tech) who had remained and headed to Victoria’s high country to do some extra training in the Australian summer.

Then just the day before the Melbourne to Warrnambool came the news he would also be lining up at the race that holds an elevated status within the nation’s cycling community and with a four-time Tour de France winner that in the peloton that position would loom even larger.

Just before the race Froome flew into the Avalon Airport, also conveniently the start point, in a small plane which barely had room for anything more than himself and his bike. He jumped out in full kit, shoes and all, and was quickly ushered to the line of the challenging 267km event, which first ran in 1895, as his last moment entry also became a last moment arrival after fog delayed the flight.

Froome was racing among a field of around 125 riders, mainly from National Road Series teams, as this was the race that would start a new season of the top-level domestic series in Australia.

Froome may have been an outlier as a professional cyclist – and one with the most envied of palmarès at that – but he also had no team and hadn’t been training toward this event, as many others in the field had. This, was in fact, all about getting in training toward a return to Europe for Froome and was the final day in a what turned out to be an extremely solid block.

“I came here looking for a hard training ride and that’s exactly what I got. Finished completely cross-eyed over the finish line there....what a day, that was an amazing race,” Froome said in Warrnambool.

The Melbourne to Warrnambool can often be a race where the early moves get caught, legs burnt after a long day out the front as those who had tucked back in the bunch came over the top. It was not unreasonable to think that this may be the case again this year, particularly with a solid headwind at play as riders worked their way from Avalon to the west of Victoria.

However, as the field worked their way inland before emerging onto the Great Ocean Road at Port Campbell three-quarters of the way through the race and then cut in for the final stretch to Warrnambool, the early break held firm. 

“Didn’t really expect such a big group to go earlier on,” said Froome. “Everyone told me to be conservative in the first 100, 150kms but it seems as if that was race over in the first 20. A group of 20 guys went up the road with all the teams represented so behind there wasn’t really much of a chase going on.”

That is something, however, that Froome worked to change, as while others in the peloton may have had teammates up the front, he was flying solo and there were also a number of riders keen to join him in an attempt to bridge the gap. 

“Once we got up to the coast after about 200 k’s I think 6 of us got off the front of the peloton and started bridging that gap. Two of us then broke clear of that but we never made it back to the front, but a big day out and big chase to get there.”

It was Ben Hill (Blackshaw Racing) who Froome had gone on the charge with, a rider who has recently turned his attention to triathlons but knows all too well what it takes to do well at the race after having finished second in 2020. 

While the duo was on the move Chloe Hosking, who is racing Sunday’s women’s Warrnambool Cycling Classic, quipped on Twitter – ”I hope Chris Froome can hold Ben Hill’s wheel”.

Turns out Hosking knew the strength of the fellow Canberra-based cyclist all too well. 

The pair took back considerable ground, with the peloton finishing just shy of 14 minutes behind solo race winner Tristan Saunders (Team BridgeLane) but Hill and Froome with their efforts had cut around nine minutes from that gap.

Hill took eighth at 4:51 behind Saunders and Froome 12th at 5:14, with a few riders that had fallen back from the lead of the race between the pair.

“Congrats to whoever came over the line first, I didn’t actually get to see that far ahead,” said Froome after crossing the Warrnambool finish line on Raglan Parade. “Yeah that was a brutal but great event.”