Tobias Lund Andresen (Picnic PostNL) flew across the line in first place after an action-packed edition of the men's Surf Coast Classic where both the climbs, crosswinds and a determination to take the sting out of the sprint of the dominant finishing force of Sam Welsford (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) set the race alight.
Andresen overcame the Australian, who was feeling the impacts of the tough 157km day at the 1.1 event from Lorne to Torquay that acts as an entree to the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road race. Tim Torn Teutenberg (Lidl-Trek) was third which means, that after some near misses in South Australia, the 22-year-old has already managed to pull off his first podium place after spending less than a month in the WorldTour.
It too was an early season achievement for Andresen, who had the aim of taking his first one-day win this year and pulled it off before January was over when he claimed the challenging sprint, which has a left-hand turn into the final kilometre.
"I was around the corner in Sam's wheel in, like fifth position, so I was very happy," said Andresen in Torquay as he looked back at what was going through his mind during that winning effort. "But then, yeah, I got swarmed so that moment you just have to stay calm – you're not going to get anything out of rushing yourself."
"A bit lucky for me, Teutenberg, he opened up an early sprint so I followed his wheel and then when you see a finish line, you don't think about anything else than just getting there first."
There were plenty of moments, however, before the final run-in on the aggressive day of racing when there was doubt about whether it might even come down to a final bunch charge throughout, with the final move of reeled-in being a break of Casper Pedersen (Soudal-QuickStep), Kelland O’Brien (Jayco-AlUla) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) that was caught in the final kilometres.
How it unfolded
It was the second edition of the Surf Coast Classic for the men, with the 157km race setting off from Lorne in mild conditions after a foreshore sign-on, with a backdrop of surfers out in the waves.
The 1.1 race covered much the same terrain as Wednesday’s women’s event, only differing in the fact that to add in another 40km it looped out to Forrest – a town with a labyrinth of mountain bike trails hidden among the trees. There was no change to the brutal start, however, with riders out on the 10km climb before the race got underway so they were ready to react to what was to come.
There were, of course, attacks as soon as the flag dropped on the ascent, with solo efforts inspiring groups and then turning into splits. There were also plenty of riders slipping off the back, hoping that they would be able to bridge again once it eased. Some could but others among the long tail of riders chasing once the race went through Dean’s Marsh, couldn’t,
As the race set off through Barwon Downs and on to Forrest the attacks kept flying, as well as the splits but it was not until it had ticked down to around 100km left in the race that a prolonged group got away out front. First, it was around 15 and then the peloton split again as another group peeled off in pursuit, catching the initial bunch and swelling the number to around 40. The group was well populated by riders from Picnic PostNL, EF Education–Easypost, LidL-Trek and Soudal-Quickstep, with Mauro Schmid among them for Jayco-AlUla.
Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe was pushing the chase behind but the gap just kept stretching, creeping up to around 35 seconds by the time they went through the second feed zone with 75km left to go and it then stretched out to over a minute with around 60km to go. After that, the reeling-in started and by the time the race had around 40km to go the gap was down to 30 seconds, with Red-Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe on the chase once again.
At 35km to go the catch was made, and that of course opened the door again with the bunch being stretched, splits and multiple attacks occurring and then the crosswinds hit. The pressure was on and the field was split into multiple groups at 28km to go, while nine riders were out the front.
There was some coming together behind of the groups behind but Ineos Grenadiers was in the box seat out front with four in the leading group and gap of about 20 seconds with around 20km to go. The group contained Lucas Hamilton, Michael Kwiatkowski, Ben Swift and Geraint Thomas for Ineos Grenadiers and also Casper Pedersen (Soudal-QuickStep), Sven Erik Bystrøm (Groupama-FDJ), Kelland O’Brien (Jayco-AlUla), Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis).
It then turned into a group of three, Pedersen, O’Brien and Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) but they were caught in the final kilometres leaving the action-paced race to be decided with a challenging sprint, especially given many lead-out teams had been drained by such a hard day of racing.
When a spent Welsford launched from his, jumping onto the right wheel proved to be Andresen's salvation.
Results
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