Newly crowned Australian champion Amanda Spratt has pulled on the familiar ochre jersey at the 2020 Santos Women’s Tour Down Under after she won the second stage into Birdwood today.
Spratt won the sprint from a small group after her Mitchelton-SCOTT teammates once again animated racing, sacrificing themselves for the 32-year-old’s success.
Not enough wind:
With no major climbs on the route in 2020, it was about making the most of any opportunities and the wind presented one early on the second stage.
Joining forces with several teams, Mitchelton-SCOTT put on the pressure in the opening 30km. Their efforts momentarily caused echelons in the bunch, but the damage wasn’t enough to stick as the peloton came back together ahead of the feed zone.
Setting up for the climbs:
Not giving up on a hard race, Jessica Allen, Gracie Elvin and Georgia Williams upped the pace on the lead up to the first long climb after 80km of racing before Lucy Kennedy took over on the ascent.
Their collective efforts shattered the bunch and left just five riders at the front; including Kennedy, Spratt, teammate Grace Brown and two rivals.
Not stopping there, Kennedy continued her support role, ensuring the group stayed away for the next ten kilometres and onto the final climb of the day.
Like nationals:
Using their numbers, Spratt and Brown continued to counter attack and force fellow leaders Ruth Winder (Trek Segafredo) and Liane Lippert (Team Sunweb) to chase their efforts.
Once again sacrificed herself, Brown dropped slightly behind the trio as they began to work together to ensure their advantage for the general classification battle.
In a copy of the Australian championships on Sunday, Brown continued to fight on, and as the front trio began to play cat and mouse, she momentarily re-caught the leaders before they kicked for the sprint.
Despite not being confident of her sprint against the likes of Winder and Lippert, Spratt held her wits and proved to have the strongest legs at the end of the 115km stage.
Spratt now enters tomorrow’s penultimate stage in the race lead, with a narrow four-second advantage to Winder.
Amanda Spratt – Stage winner and overall leader:
“From the start there was crosswinds and we tried with some other teams to split it, but it just wasn’t strong enough.
“From then, we knew we needed to make it really, really hard from kilometre 85 to the finish.
“Jess, Georgia and Gracie did an awesome lead out into the first longer climb and then Lucy just let rip at the bottom. By the top of that we had five of us left with Grace, Lucy and I all there.
“From that point Lucy stayed on the front and drove it for 10km into the final climb so Grace and I could one-two and try to get rid of the others.
“In the end I couldn’t get rid of Liane and Ruth, but I decided at that point the GC was more important so the three of us were actually working almost all of the way to the finish.
“I was pretty nervous coming into the finish. Normally people would not expect me to beat those two riders in a sprint, but I just know that after a really hard race I do actually have a pretty good sprint so I’m pretty excited about to pull that off.”
Martin Vestby – Sport Director:
“It wasn’t a super hard stage but it’s always how you race it.
“Today we wanted to test it in the crosswinds early on but the wind wasn’t that strong and didn’t make the difference but it did make some people suffer in those first 30km.
“Then, everyone really committed to making it really hard and set it up in those last two climbs. We really sacrificed some riders to set it up and that worked really well.
“It doesn’t change a lot for tomorrow, other than that we have a couple of seconds advantage and that everyone is going to look at us. It’s going to be a stage where we have to defend and create the race again.”
2020 Santos Women’s Tour Down Under – Stage 2 Results:
- Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 3:04:27
- Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) ST
- Liane Lippert (Team Sunweb) ST
General Classification after Stage 2:
- Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 6:21:19
- Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) +0:04
- Liane Lippert (Team Subweb) +0:05
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