Brendon Davids (Team Brennan p/b TP 32) wins stage 3 men's road race at SA Kick It, the opening round of the ProVelo Super League, Australia's new domestic top tier racing series(Image credit: Con Chronis/ProVelo Super League)
Odette Lynch (Butterfields ZipTrack) is the bunch sprint victor on the stage 3 women's race at The Bend Motorsport park(Image credit: Con Chronis/ProVelo Super League)
After the final stage of the opening SA Kick It round of the new ProVelo Super League Talia Appleton (Praties) and Brendon Davids (Team Brennan p/b TP 32) were on the top step overall. Davids moved up after claiming the final men's road race stage while Appleton's finish safely within the bunch on Monday was enough to hold the advantage after the day 1 time trial win.
It was Odette Lynch (Butterfields ZipTrack) who claimed the opening women's stage in a bunch sprint at the 93km road race at The Bend Motorsport Park. Sophie Marr (Praties), who won Sunday's criterium, came second while it was Hong Kong's Sze Wing Lee who claimed the final spot on the podium.
Appleton, also the U23 leader, held her five-second advantage over Katelyn Nicholson (Butterfields ZipTrak) in the overall.
"I knew that we had it in us today so to be able to pull it off was really special," Lynch said in ProVelo Super League's post-stage interview on the move to shift up a step after taking the runner-up spot in the criterium. "I think it really shows we have got a bit of fight in us so, keen for the rest of the season."
A two-rider break got away in the men's 115km road race finale for SA Kick It, with the crosswind-hit race fracturing and Davids and Tynan Shannon (Royal Bikes) taking off and ultimately carving out a substantial gap to the chasers. Davids took the tight sprint between the duo and the two-minute gap to the nearest chasing bunch also saw the break riders jump into the top two spots overall.
Blake Agnoletto (Team Brennan p/b TP 32) rounded out the stage podium while his teammate Jack Ward finished fourth to secure his third place in the overall and top spot on the all-important U23 ranking.
The men's and women's U23 winners at the end of the six-event series will get an opportunity to race as a stagiaire with Jayco AlUla and at the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team.
Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
