Oceania champion Katelyn Nicholson (Butterfields ZipTrak) took a solo victory in a windy edition of the Lochard Energy Warrnambool Women's Classic on Sunday after riding off the front alone for the final forty kilometres of the race.
It was a fast tail and cross-wind driven edition of the 156-kilometre race from Colac to Warrnambool that Nicholson took just 3 hours, 51 minutes and 37 seconds to complete, delivering an average speed of 40.33km and slicing more than ten minutes off last year's winning time.
Chase rider Frankie Hall (Praties) was second, 47 seconds back, while in third at 1:38 it was last year's runner-up Josie Pepper, with the Duda Cycling rider having been in pursuit of Nicholson with Hall but falling away while suffering with cramps at about 10km to go.
"I took a flyer and just had to hope for the best, when I looked back there was the gap and I just had to trust the training and the work that I'd put in and try to pull it off for the girls," said Nicholson after claiming her trophy. "I knew once the gap was there that is was all in for them so it's very exciting to do it."
There was not another rider in sight when Nicholson crossed the line but she never truly let herself believe it might all be sewn up until she hit the finishing straight.
“It felt like an awfully long way, it never felt safe," said Nicholson of her 40km solo effort. "It sat at 20 seconds for a long time and I just had to back the training …. I just had to trust it and back myself in."
The first group in the race, that was this year also delivering the second round of competition in the new ProVelo Super League, came across the Raglan Parade finish line just over three minutes back from Nicholson. Keely Bennett (Duda) led the charge to take fourth with overall and under 23 series leader Talia Appleton come across the line in fifth and, as a result, maintained the top spot overall with a tally of 217 points, just 1 point ahead of Nicholson.
Still, on the all-important under-23 leaderboard – with the winner of that category in line for a Liv-AlUla-Jayco development team contract – Appleton has a more substantial gap of 75 points to teammate Sophie Marr.
How it unfolded
As the riders got ready to race in Colac, it was clear that they were facing a fast, action-packed day ahead, with the cross-tail winds howling at both the start and finish line, and the southeasterly winds predicted at 30 to 45kph in Warrnambool. The start list of 58, reduced a little by the fact that the U19 riders weren’t able to take part in the event due to the distance being beyond mandated limits and others missing included the in-form Alyssa Polites (Meridian Blue p/b 99 Bikes) who had her summer run halted by a crash at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
Still, her teammates from New Zealand made a determined effort to be on the Colac start line, with no rest for Rhylee Akeroyd after she claimed the U23 national road race title on Friday in Timaru on New Zealand’s south island or for her Meridian Blue p/b 99 Bikes teammate Kirsty Watts, who took second place in the category.
Celestine Wells (Nostromo x CCACHE) delivered the early break, working her gap out to one minute at 40km into the race and then out beyond four minutes. However, the pace ramped up and the the splits began to occur so by the halfway mark Wells’ gap was reduced to two minutes as the riders headed toward Port Campbell and the windy roads of the coast.
With the pressure on and 50km left it was no surprise the attacks started to fly with plenty of back and forth amid the jostling for a mix that the strong teams were content to let go. At 47km to go a group of five got the gap and, with Wells now caught, set off at the front of the race.
The group comprised of Frankie Hall (Praties), Alli Anderson (Butterfields Ziptrak), Savannah Coupland (Cycling Development Foundation), Aberdeen McLain (Women’s Cycling Development) and Josephine Pepper (Duda Cycling), and had a gap of just under 30 seconds at 42km to go. ProVelo Super League series leader, Talia Appleton (Praties) then bridged to make it a group of six and Keely Bennett (Duda), the winner of the final edition of the National Road Series in 2024, followed. The jumps of one then stopped with a group instead making the junction and creating a bunch of favourites up the front.
As spectators were gathering at the finish line on Raglan Parade in Warrnambool, with the ProVelo Super League flags whipping in gusts of wind that hit 48kph and the long concrete monument to past winners providing one of the best seats in the house, the Oceania champion Katelyn Nicholson (Butterfields ZipTrak) jumped off the front, urged on through the radio by teammate Anderson who had sensed that now was the right moment to go. It also wasn’t long before Hall and Pepper went on the chase again.
“My goal was to make the breakaway from the very start so every time I saw an attack off the front, if I felt like they were a strong rider, I just followed their wheel through multiple attacks throughout the race and finally the last one stuck,” said Pepper. “I saw Katelyn attack off the front and I thought ‘yep, this is the one. I can’t let her go’ and I tried really hard to chase her down but she was just incredibly strong.”
By the time it was down to 20km to go the gap from Nicholson to the heavily reduced peloton was 1:50 and at ten kilometres to go it had grown to three minutes with the chase at 30 seconds but the chances of making the catch diminished when Pepper fell away from Hall, suffering from cramps.
“This was the hardest race I’ve ever done,” Pepper told Cyclingnews. “I couldn’t feel my thighs at the end of the race, I just had to dig deep and get to the finish.”
Nicholson did not skip a beat, only sitting up to straighten the jersey and enjoy the moment when she was almost upon the line, making 100 per cent sure she had that top step of the podium in the fastest edition of the race since the stand-alone women’s version was introduced in 2022.
The 267km men's Powercor Melbourne to Warrnambool Cycling Classic played out the day before, with Blake Agnoletto (Team Brennan p/b TP32) dominating a five-way sprint to capture the win.
Results
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