Tour Down Under 2018 - Stage 3 Review & Stage 4 Preview

Tour Down Under 2018 - Stage 3 Review & Stage 4 Preview
12:29, 18 Jan 2018

Stage 3 Review - The third sprint of the Tour Down Under resulted in a third different winner as Elia Viviani took a maiden victory in the colours of Quick-Step. The Italian, who had moved from Sky in the offseason, sat on the tail of a high-octane lead-out from Mitchelton-Scott, who had Caleb Ewan in the perfect position as he bedded for his second stage win of the week. The Australian looked a likely winner as the field launched their sprints, but with about 200 meters left to go he appeared to hesitate and the Italian, already in full flow, needed no invitation to sweep past for the victory. German Phil Bauhaus, sprinting for Sunweb, also passed him to take second in the scoring heat with temperatures past 40 degrees.

Viviani was grateful to his team for their work through the day, telling Cyclingnews: "The guys did another perfect job. The feeling was good with the team. I have an amazing team. I really thank all of my mates."

The early breakaway was a two-man effort, with the escape artists of the race - KOM leader Nicholas Dlamini (Dimension Data) and Scott Bowden (UniSA-Australia) – and the former of them took the points over the first category climb of Penny’s Hill Road, giving him a serious chance of taking the jersey to the end of the race.

Dlamini would soon drop back into the field, leaving Bowden to take the intermediate sprints at Myponga and then Inman Valley, and he was in front until there were just 20km to go. Shortly after, Katusha’s Tiago Machado snuck away, and built up a gap of 17 seconds with little reaction from the peloton, who reeled him back with ease with 8 kilometres to go.

From then on, Mitchelton-Scott, Bora and Lotto all fought for position, but all the time, Viviani was lying in wait and he took his chance with both hands when the opportunity appeared.

TDU_2018_Stage_4

Stage 4 Preview - Norwood > Uraidla: 128.47 KM - The Route

After a long neutral zone – the actual flag drop is in Norwood, but they really start racing after leaving Newton, heading Northeast to the first sprint of the day which takes place at Birdwood. Soon after the field will pass through Mount Pleasant. About 18 kilometres later they will then go ‘over’ Mount Terrans, and they will be on their way to the feed zone (Charlestone).

The second and final intermediate sprint comes at Lenswood, and then there’s a long rolling descent that takes us to the final part of the stage.

The Finish - Norton Summit is not a new climb to this race; Indeed, it was used at the beginning of a stage in 2016 (indeed it was right at the start of Stage 4). 5.5km at an average of 5.1%, it is enough to deter attacks but it was completed in under 12 minutes when taken there, although of course, it is going to come at the end of a much longer day this time around.

That is not the actual finish, however. There’s another kilometre of false flat – an ideal launching pad for attacks – and then, of course, the descent to the finish, which is 3.5 km long. It’s also fairly shallow too, so gaps could be made and closed.

The final 300m or so are flat and downhill.

Contenders - Whilst this is not a summit finish, it is very much a GC day and perhaps likely to be as big if not bigger than Willunga given the nature of the finish with a whole kilometre of false flat after the climb as well as the shallow descent. Being able to mix climbing and sprinting will be essential; We ought to see the sprinters that made it to the finish on Stage 2 eliminated.

We saw some overlooked names fighting for the victory then and Gorka Izaguirre, Domenico Pozzovivo, Luis Leon Sanchez and Diego Ulissi ought to be in the thick of it. All four are good climbers with the best sprint perhaps belonging to Sanchez and Ulissi. Pierre LaTour, the hot French prospect for AGS2R, was also in the thick of it, although he surely will prefer Willunga.

This will be the first serious test of Richie Porte since coming back from his crash although the finish does not play to his strengths as much as tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how the in-form Rohan Dennis also goes given the closing terrain ought to suit.

It will be interesting to see if Peter Sagan gets up this hill, but his teammate Jay McCarthy is sitting in a prime position to launch an assault on the overall and the bonus seconds at the line will be of major interest. Nathan Haas is on the same time and, along with Jhonatan Restrepo, gives Katusha a decent double hand going into the stage.

Caleb Ewan is not an overall contender, so Daryl Impey looks an obvious choice for Mitchelton-Scott on GC.

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