Ryder Hesjedal 2016 Tour Down Under diary – Stage 4, Norwood to Victor Harbor

by Aaron S. Lee

ADELAIDE—Three-time race winner Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) made it two straight wins at the 2016 Santos Tour Down Under with a 138km stage 4 victory at Victor Harbor on Friday, Jan. 22, in South Australia.

The two-time Australian road race champion claimed a 10-second time bonus for the win along with another second claimed on the first intermediate to increase his overall lead to 14 seconds over former race leader and fellow Aussie Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff), who was fourth across the line behind Gerrans, Ben Swift (Team Sky) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo).

With only two stages remaining, including the Queen stage on Saturday atop Willunga Hill, it will be hard pressed for Gerrans’ rivals to lift the ochre leaders jersey from his back.

“I’ve increased my lead but I’ll still have to be very attentive before Willunga Hill tomorrow,” said Gerrans referring to the Queen Stage that has traditionally decided the tour winner. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

McCarthy retained both his sprint and youth classification jerseys on the day, and claims he will continue the fight.

“It’s definitely difficult for me on GC (overall) now but I’ll give my best tomorrow,” said McCarthy. “Obviously it’s a hard day tomorrow (but) I have to back up and go for it again. We’re still there so we might as well keep trying.”

In a Canadian Cycling Magazine exclusive, cycling journalist Rupert Guinness once again caught up with a sunburned three-time Olympian and 2012 Giro d’Italia winner Ryder Hesjedal to get his thoughts on the day and on the 151.5 km penultimate stage looming.

Hesjedal’s diary entry: Stage 4, Norwood –Victor Harbor, 138km

Today was great and produced all components of a tough stage, and in the end it was a tough sprint. When you see the leader of the race winning a sprint in the end like that is pretty phenomenal.

It was probably the first time in a bike race where it didn’t go completely pear-shaped with the weather, especially when it was supposed to, so we got lucky with that. However, nobody was complaining that the storm didn’t come get us.

Historically this race is decided by seconds, and there can be a slim margin between top 5 and 12th overall. But that’s the way it goes, so there’s still a chance on Willunga for some of those guys in the top 10.

Gerrans showed his strength by extending his lead like that on a day like today and getting seconds is a big coup today. Gerrans has both the legs and the team at the moment.

Today we wanted to be paying attention if a big dangerous break did go, but that wasn’t the case so it was back to the real objective, which was Giacomo for the sprint. My job was to stay with him at his pace on the climb. You can’t really help him too much on the climb as he had to ride his own pace and I just did what I could after. He definitely went deep. Even from the start it was a hard day for the pure sprinters.

He didn’t quite make the front group, so it was definitely a hard effort. Luckily it was me and Boy van Poppel with him and we got into a good group. It wasn’t looking too good at one point with Sky drilling it and hard to come back on that finish.

We managed to make it back and Giacomo had a good sprint and came in third, so in the end we were happy with the day.

Right now I don’t see anyone putting time on Gerrans on Willunga. It will be a tall order but that’s why we race because it’s not over until it’s really over. For us, putting someone in the top 10 was a realistic goal so we are still going to fight for that and there is still one more chance with a sprint on the last stage for Giacomo.

So we’ve got two more days to race and we’ll do what we can.

Until then, stay tuned…

-Ryder Hesjedal

Stage 4 top-five results

Place	Rider	Country	Team	Time
1	Simon Gerrans	AUS	Orica-GreenEdge	3:13:59
2	Ben Swift	GBR	Team Sky	s.t.
3	Giacomo Nizzolo	ITA	Trek-Segafredo	s.t.
4	Jay McCarthy	AUS	Tinkoff-Saxo	s.t.
5	Leigh Howard	AUS	IAM Cycling	s.t.

General classification, Stage 4 top-five results

Place	Rider	Country	Team	Time
1	Simon Gerrans	AUS	Orica-GreenEdge	13:41:58
2	Jay McCarthy	AUS	Tinkoff-Saxo	00:00:14
3	Rohan Dennis	AUS	BMC Racing	00:00:26
4	Sergio Henao	COL	Team Sky	00:00:28
5	Steve Morabito	SUI	FDJ	s.t.

Aaron S. Lee (@aaronshanelee) is a cycling and triathlon columnist for Eurosport and a guest contributor to Canadian Cycling Magazine.