Four days after the Tour Down Under, and three before the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, the Australian campaign brought the riders to the Surf Coast Classic this Thursday, in the State of Victoria. After a livelier race than expected, a sprint still concluded the day and Tobias Lund Andresen grabbed victory. Matt Walls couldn’t make it into the top 10 and took thirteenth, just ahead of his teammate Quentin Pacher. Next stop: Geelong, on Sunday, to conclude this trip Down Under.
After a transfer from Adelaide to Melbourne, the Groupama-FDJ cycling team opened its second week of racing in Australia with the Surf Coast Classic, between Lorne and Torquay, two coastal towns. However, the 157-kilometre course barely followed the coastline and even began with a ten-kilometre climb averaging 4%. “There was a small peloton of only 94 riders at the start this morning,” Jussi Veikkanen explained. “Usually, this race suits the sprinters, but several teams today did not have any. This gave everyone other ideas, and that was quickly confirmed. There was a big fight from the start, and almost until kilometre sixty”. No breakaway was able to establish in the first hour of racing, and a small hill eventually made the peloton explode. “A group of forty got away,” Jussi reported. “We had Quentin and Rémy at the front, which was a good thing, but all the main sprinters were caught in the back. Red Bull-Bora hansgrohe chased with Cofidis for almost sixty kilometres and the gap was never more than a minute. It was an intense race! The average speed was almost 50 km/h after two hours of racing.”
“The boys were really active”, Jussi Veikkanen
Eventually, with a bit more than thirty kilometres to go, everything came back together. It lasted just a few moments though since new attacks broke out in the final. “We saw in particular an attempt with several riders from Ineos Grenadiers and we had Sven in this group”, added Jussi. “The boys were really active. When this group was caught, a trio went away with Rémy, but they were reeled in four kilometres from the finish”. Despite the continuous attacks, a bunch sprint still decided the winner after some three hours of racing. Tobias Lund Andresen claimed victory. “It seems that Lewis positioned Matt on the Red Bull-Bora hansgrohe’s lead-out train, but Matt didn’t have the legs to finish it off today,” commented Jussi. The Briton then took thirteenth place, while Quentin Pacher took fourteenth. “The positive thing is that Sunday’s crash left no after-effects for Rémy and Lewis, which is good,” concluded Jussi. “As it has been since the beginning of the trip, the group is in good shape, we just need to get THAT result. After paying the effects of his flu on the Tour Down Under, Quentin is getting better and better and that’s a good sign. Rémy is still in the mix and Sunday’s course suits several of our riders. We’ll have to take advantage of it to try to have numbers in the final”.
