Durbridge Makes Bold Impression in Tour Opener
WAIS-AIS cyclist Luke Durbridge has made an impressive international U23 Tour debut with a third place finish in the opening stage prologue of the Olympia’s Tour in the Netherlands.
The 19 year old Team Jayco Skins rider completed the 10 kilometre time trial in Heerenveen 27 seconds off the pace of reigning individual pursuit World Champion, Taylor Phinney (Trek Livestrong) who won the day in a time of 11:44.720.
Phinney’s team mate World Championship pursuit silver medallist, Jesse Sergent of New Zealand was second at 17 seconds.Team Jayco Skins Rohan Dennis, 19, and Michael Hepburn, 18, also performed well with Dennis fifth at 35 seconds and Hepburn seventh at 40 seconds.
“I was pretty nervous,” said Durbridge. “I knew I had good form but you never know what your opponents will do so.
“I was in the car following (Michael) Hepburn before my ride which was really handy to see how to ride the course,” he said. “I saved a little bit for the last three kilometres and brought it home really good.
“It’s Heppy’s (Hepburn) first TT in the last year and a half so a good result from him and also Rohan was consistent as usual so that was really good for the whole team and we’re sitting second on teams classification which is really good so a good start to the Tour.”
Durbridge last year claimed three gold medals in the Junior World Championships with wins in the road time trial, teams pursuit and Madison while Hepburn and Dennis were both in the line up that claimed the teams pursuit gold medal in an Australian record time at the Track World Championships in March.
“This puts Team Jayco Skins in a handy position going into the first open road stage tomorrow,” said Team Director James Victor. “Race organisers were very impressed with the Australian performances, given we have four 18 year olds, and one 19 year old in the team of six racing in such a high level tour.”
The Olympia’s Tour is a six day race across the Dutch flat lands. Stage two will cover a 156km course from Heerenveen to Meppel.
“The toughest days for the riders will come on Friday which is a 227.3km road stage and on Saturday when the final stage, a 9.5km time trial, will be raced in the afternoon after a 100km road stage in the morning,” said Victor.
Trek Livestrong was the only team to outdo Team Jayco Skins with Phinney having an exceptional day and his teammates finishing second, fourth, sixth and tenth.
“We’ll see how Trek-Livestrong approach it, generally they’ll have to probably control cause they’ve got the jersey so they’ll riding on the front and doing the majority of the work and we’re just going to have to use that up and wait for the opportune moment to try and get some time back on them,” said Durbridge. “Then the final time trial is ton the same sort of circuit as today so hopefully I can go in there with fresher legs and try and get a better result than third.
The Team Jayco Skins riders contesting the Olympia’s Tour are Alex Carver, Rohan Dennis, Aaron Donnelly, Luke Durbridge, Michael Hepburn and Malcolm Rudolph.