Chris Sutton continued his domination of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour today when he snagged his third consecutive stage victory and further extended his overall lead.
The Garmin Slipstream rider was quickest of 30 riders who sprinted it out for the stage win, beating his main GC rival Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) and his own team-mate Bradley Wiggins to the line on Barwon Heads.
The big gallop came about after a 70 kilometre breakaway by Michael Matthews (Jayco AIS) and Darren Lapthorne (Rapha Condor) was hauled back with just over ten kilometres to go.
"I was yelling at the boys from three kilometres to go and then I told Brad [Wiggins] to go 500 metres out. I was going to let him have the stage, as I thought we could take one and two,” he said after the stage.
"But then I could feel riders coming and I thought it could have been either Jonathan Cantwell or [stage one winner] Jaan Kirsipuu, so I went for it.”
Sutton holds onto the yellow jersey and thanks to the time bonuses, he is now five seconds clear of Cantwell and 43 seconds up on team-mate Wiggins heading into tomorrow’s penultimate stage.
Wiggins is expected to win the ten kilometre individual time trial in Geelong, but Sutton will also need to put in a good performance if he is to hold off Cantwell. Team-mate Svein Tuft should also be up there and currently sits fifth overall.
Sutton feels that Garmin Slipstream is in a strong position. "The boys have ridden for me but we have three up on general classification now and so anything can happen. We planned it like that,” he stated. “I was a national under 19 time trial champion but I steered away from it after that. My tactics will just be to go out hard and get faster and faster.”
Cantwell isn’t intimidated by his rival’s hat-trick of stage wins. He’s got nothing to lose tomorrow and so will give it everything to try to grab yellow. “I'm five seconds behind Chris overall,” he said. “For two sprinters to go head to head, it's been a bit of a strange outcome so far. But I have 38 seconds up my sleeve on Bradley and when you have an inspirational team, anything can happen.”
Whoever leads after tomorrow’s test will have a strong chance of winning the 2.1-ranked event. It ends on Saturday with a circuit race in Melbourne, and time differences are likely to be small.
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Jayco Herald Sun Tour, Victoria, Australia (2.1), October 11-17:
October 15, Stage 4: Anglesea - Barwon Heads:
1, Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) 138 kilometres in 3 hours 6 mins 47 secs
2, Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia)
3, Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream)
4, Aaron Kemps (Rock Racing)
5, Jaan Kirsipuu (LeTua)
6, Dean Downing (Rapha Condor) all same time
KOM 1:
1, Tom Peterson (Garmin-Slipstream) 12 pts
2, Jai Crawford (Savings & Loans) 8
3, Glenn O'shea (Jayco AIS) 4
KOM 2:
1, David McCann (Prime Estate) 24 pts
2, Adam Semple (Jayco AIS) 16
3, Jai Crawford (Savings & Loans) 8
Sprint 1:
1, Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) 10 pts
2, Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) 8
3, Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) 6
Sprint 2:
1, Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) 6 pts
2, Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) 4
3, Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) 2
Sprint 3:
1, Darren Lapthorne (Rapha Condor) 6 pts
2, Michael Matthews (Jayco AIS) 4
3, Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) 2
General classification:
1, Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) 14 hours 10 mins 42 secs
2, Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) at 5 secs
3, Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) at 43 secs
4, Matthew Wilson (Jayco Australia National) at 58 secs
5, Svein Tuft (Garmin-Slipstream) at 1 min 8 secs
6, David Tanner (Rock Racing) at 1 min mins 38 secs
Mountains classification:
1, Tom Peterson (Garmin-Slipstream) 54 pts
2, Alex Howes (Garmin-Slipstream) 38
3, Leigh Howard (Jayco AIS) 28
Irish:
Sprint classification:
1, Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) 58 pts
2, Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) 48
3, Tom Peterson (Garmin-Slipstream) 16
Best Young Rider:
1, Nick Aitken (Jayco Australia National 1) at 4 hours 12 mins 37 secs
2, Mitchell Pearson (Prime Estate) at 2 mins 59 secs
3, Ricardo Van Der Velde (Garmin-Slipstream) at 4 mins 30 secs
Teams:
1, Garmin Slipstream, 42 hours 34 mins 29 secs
2, Fly V Australia, at 5 mins 34 secs
3, Bissell Pro Cycling, at 9 mins 17 secs
Other:
6, Prime Estate, at 33 mins 57 secs