2018 Giro d'Italia - five stage victories, 13 days in pink
On Saturday, Mikel Nieve celebrated his 34th birthday in style by winning the 214km stage from Susa to Cervinia after an attack with 30km to go.
He finished two minutes 17 seconds clear of LottoNL-Jumbo's Robert Gesink while Felix Grossschartner (BORA-hansgrohe) was third. The trio were all the early break.
After the race finish in Rome on Sunday, director Matt White summed up the team's performance.
“We came to the Giro with ambitions of winning our first Grand Tour. We went about it in an aggressive style of racing that has not been seen for a long time. Our four stage wins, with three in the pink jersey, really created an incredible buzz around the cycling world.
“The team was 100% behind Simon and although he lost the jersey so close to the finish we are all so proud of how he represented the team in one of the world's biggest sporting events.
“Then to cap off and incredible win by Mikel Nieve, directly after the disappointment of losing our dream, shows the real character of this team and this Giro will never be forgotten.
“Even with five stage wins and 13 days in the pink jersey we will go back and analyse the race and come back hungrier for more success in 2019.”
Spratt solos to Swiss victory
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Relive Spratt's big Basque win
Fresh from her Emakumeen XXXI Bira stage race victory last week, Amanda Spratt won the 111 kilometre one-day GP Cham - Hagendorn race in Switzerland in a similar solo fashion. Racing with fellow Aussie Jenelle Crooks in a smaller peloton than usual, she took the race by the scruff of the neck for victory and looks in good form for the Giro Rosa in early July.
And not to be outdone...Roy and Elvin attack from way out in Belgium
Spratt's teammates Sarah Roy and Gracie Elvin pulled a similar move over at the Gooik-Geraardsbergen-Gooik race in Belgium, attacking together from 75 kilometres out. The pair beat the bunch home by over six minutes. Teammate and Kiwi Georgia Williams also enjoying current good form finished fifth.
"That was such a cool way to win a bike race," Roy said. "We had a plan to be aggressive in Geraardsbergen so the whole team was setting the pace on the front and when we hit the Muur I just slipped off the front with Gracie and Georgia in the chase behind.
"Being away just the two of us and winning can't get much better than that."
Elvin experienced similar feelings following the race.
"It doesn't happen very often to win like this so we can enjoy it," the Canberran said. "Roy was strong and got away after Muur, I saw a good moment to attack to try and keep the move away and nobody came with me so I rode across to Roy and it worked.
The men put the Hammer down
Damian Howson, Daryl Impey, Cam Meyer, Roger Kluge and Lucas Hamilton completed a clean sweep at the Hammer Series in Stavanger, Norway.
After winning the Hammer Climb and Hammer Sprint, the Aussie registered squad went into the Chase with a 30 second advantage over Sunweb. And third placed Sky suffered an unfortunate crash.
Despite the new format, Cam Meyer said the time trial style Chase was one of the best he's done with a team.
"That was awesome and was probably one of the best rides I have been a part of, we rode it so smoothly and we got told we were up on the other teams quite early so we knew we were on a good run and it has been a really successful few days.
"We wanted to finish with a bang so kept riding all the way to the finish even though we had a large advantage, there's a lot of team time trials coming this year so this is another dress rehearsal."
Scotson takes fifth at under 23 Paris-Roubaix
Mitchelton-Scott's under 23 team Mitchelton-Bike Exchange also saw success with young Aussie Callum Scotson finishing fifth at Sunday's Paris-Roubaix Espoirs.
Scotson produced a gutsy effort to bridge across to the race leaders with 50 kilometres to go, just losing contact as the leading trio entered the famed velodrome. Scotson lost out to Jasper Philipsen (Hagens Berman Axeon) in the sprint for fourth place.
“The race was really good, my legs didn't feel amazing to begin with and it was a hard and crazy start but then as I got further through I felt better and better," the youngster said.
"People were getting tired so I knew I needed to make a move with about 50kilometres to go. A few of us got across to the front guys and then it was a race between about six of us in the end. I was right there on the last hard section but just a bit unfortunate and ended up about 30metres behind at the end of the last cobble section.
"I tried hard to get back to the front three but didn't quite have the legs. In the end I came in for fifth, I was disappointed to just miss the top three but also very happy with my race and the support from the team.”
