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It was a day out for the breakaway, with Stewart of ARA Skip Capital proving the strongest in the end as she put in a late attack and a strong solo effort to hold off her former companions to claim victory.
Stewart marked her comeback to racing in style, putting the frustration of a broken collarbone that had sidelined her in January behind her as she claimed a win on her first race back.
"I'm in absolute disbelief," Stewart said. "I didn't have too much confidence coming into this race, I had sat out most of January with a broken collarbone.
"But the team had confidence in me once I was in the break, and I had Henk and Dave (Vogels and Manton, team director and mechanic) in the car saying, 'you got this'."
After initially jumping away with 110 kilometres left in the longest race on the women's cycling calendar, Stewart, Josie Pepper (Van D’am p/b Butterfields), Amanda Poulsen (Team Bridgelane), and Sophia Sammons (Cycling Development Foundation) cooperated well to stay ahead of a tactically neutralised peloton, before fighting it out for the win on the outskirts of Warrnambool.
"It wasn't the plan for me to be in the break that early," Stewart added. "But I was following moves for the team with us having such good sprinters in the bunch. We worked well together, I'm more of a sprinter but I didn't want to wait for the end, I dug the heels in, gave in everything and held on."
How it happened
The race was shaped by the breakaway of the day, as Pepper (Van D’am p/b Butterfields), Poulsen (Team Bridgelane), Stewart (ARA Skip Capital) and Sammons (Cycling Development Foundation) escaped with 110 km to go.
Pepper was keen to contest the intermediate sprints and mountains points out on course, with the rest mostly content to follow and maintain the breakaway’s momentum.
German entry Marion Mundt chased behind the quartet up front for some time, before eventually drifting back to the peloton.
There wasn’t a hard chase from the main bunch of 55 starters, with pre-race favourite Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez), entered as an individual, having to do some work at the front of the group to keep the escapees’ lead from blowing out. The gap reached a maximum of four and a half minutes, before Team Bridgelane put the pressure on the peloton along the coast.
The pace was really ignited in the peloton with 64 kilometres left in the race, Bridgelane and Brown setting a hard tempo that splintered the race.
Bridgelane team director Pat Shaw told the SBS commentary team on the coverage that they were seeking to animate the race in response to some negative tactics from other teams, though they still hoped for Poulsen to win from the breakaway.
Brown forced an acceleration with 42 kilometres left to race, splitting the field dramatically as she tried to forge her way across to the head of the race.
Soon after, there was a big crash in the peloton, coming after a turn onto a narrow road that saw Ella Simpson (ARA Skip Capital) and Stephanie Hibburt requiring medical assistance, and a large number of riders hitting the ground.
The quartet up front kept working together, with Sammons suffering a massive cramp with 34 kilometres left to race, stopping briefly to recover before being able to restart and catch up with her breakaway companions.
The peloton lost all impetus after the crash, but Lauren Thomas took the opportunity to launch a solo bid to catch the leaders, who themselves had slowed with the chance of the main bunch catching them significantly reduced.
The rolling hills on the entry to Warrnambool saw an attack from Pepper first, before Stewart launched the decisive attack with six kilometres left to race. She was able to get a gap on the uphill run, but Pepper and Poulsen combined to chase behind and kept the Victorian in sight all the way to the finish.
Pepper made a last-gasp attempt with just over two kilometres to go to bridge the gap to Stewart, but it wasn't to be and Stewart won by 6 seconds over her South Australian rival; 10 seconds to Poulsen; 44 to Sammons; 2'47 to Thomas; with the peloton led over the line by Keely Bennett (Team Bridgelane) 3'33 behind the solo winner.
