Surfs up! 🏄♂️ The elite riders ditched their bikes to try their hand at surfing, cooling down just as the racing is set to heat up. #CadelRoadRace
PREVIEW | Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race 2024 - Girmay, Ewan, Strong and Narváez headline first World Tour one-day race of the season
CyclingSaturday, 27 January 2024 at 18:13
Preview. Giving continuation to the Australian summer racing, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race is one of the most recent additions to the World Tour calendar. Taking place on the 28th of January, it provides opportunities for both sprinters, puncheurs and classics riders to take an early big win.
The Australian race revolves around the city of Geelong, with deep connections to Cadel Evans. It is a mostly flat race all throughout, before entering the final circuit where the riders will race around on five occasions, and they will have two climbs within it.
Geelong - Geelong, 175 kilometers
The climb to Challambra Crescent is 1.3 kilometers at 7.9%. Not too hard, but enough to split the peloton, drop several riders, and on the final lap attack hard, specially as towards the summit it goes up to 15%. It's a very explosive section that ends with 9 kilometers to go where the riders will be in small groups, but have around two kilometers to reorganize.
Following that there will be a small uphill pitch where some attacks are, again, possible, of around 300 meters at 10%. However from there on the race changes quite significantly and the final 6 kilometers will be much more prone to chasing.
Along big avenues, the riders will have only two corners until they reach the finishing straight. It is as simple of a finale as it could be where a solo rider stands little chances, and having a large group can be very beneficial. This is where the balance between the early attackers and the sprinters will be interesting.
Profile final 10.4 kilometers Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race
The Weather
Map Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race 2024
The southern breeze will see a crosswind in the main climb of the final circuit and a tailwind in the following kilometers. It may help the attackers, although in the finale it won't exactly benefit a solo attacker with cross and headwinds.
The Favourites
Israel - Premier Tech - Israel are a team that came to Australia guns blazing and have several big contenders. Corbin Strong is a very strong puncheur with a strong sprint, ideal for a race of such conditions. However the team has the depth in this race with no doubt, featuring Tour Down Under winner Stephen Williams who can certainly be on the attack in the climbs. The team has cards they can use for attacks but also to possibly control for a sprint such as Derek Gee, George Bennett, Simon Clarke and Nick Schultz.
INEOS - Jhonatan Narváez is a premium favourite for the Australian one-day race. He has been sprinting incredibly well throughout this start to the season, and in this type of explosive climb he can attack and make the difference. An incredibly dangerous combo. INEOS have Elia Viviani as a card for the sprint. Filippo Ganna on paper could be a favourite for any scenario, but that will only happen if his form is superior to that of the past week.
Biniam Girmay - Intermarché - Wanty have a few weapons but the leader will with no doubt be Biniam Girmay. The Eritrean was the winner of the recent Surf Coast Classic and showed form throughout the Tour Down Under. In a sprint, he is as fast or more than anyone else present, and the climbs should not be too hard to distance him from the top places on the road.
Team Jayco AlULa - The Tour Down Under went anything but according to the plan, but the team have the chance here to save their Australian summer. Caleb Ewan will be at the start as a strong sprinter and that is what the team will focus on. Luke Plapp is also back to racing (this was the case at the Surf Coast Classic), an incredibly dangerous rider here at his best but we do not know it it will be the case.
The race may end in a sprint, last year's winner was a complete shock with Marius Mayrhofer. So we can't exclude another surprise win in such scenario. Max Kanter was quite consistent throughout the past few weeks and in a sprint he packs a good punch. Dan McLay could be an interesting figure, however he will struggle to follow the peloton through the climbs. Mathias Vacek, Emils Liepins and Milan Fretin could be other outsiders in such a scenario.
Late attacks also carry perhaps just as high chances, seeing that there are not too many sprinters at the start line. The climbs will certainly see attacks specially taking into consideration the presence of Old Willunga Hill winner Oscar Onley who has no other option but to attack. Laurence Pithie, Cristian Scaroni, Georg Zimmermann and Quinn Simmons can be extremely dangerous in such a situation.
Prediction Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race 2024:
*** Corbin Strong, Jhonatan Narváez
** Biniam Girmay, Laurence Pithie
* Elia Viviani, Caleb Ewan, Luke Plapp, Max Kanter, Oscar Onley, Quinn Simmons
Pick: Corbin Strong
Preview written by Rúben Silva.
claps 0visitors 1531
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Hard to believe with the advancment of modern medicine he can not find a cause for this.frieders321-12-2024
- You continue to platform these two cheats. With that in mind I can no longer use your site. I know my leaving means little, but, sometimes you have to take a stand. See ya!DJ21-12-2024
- Look at what Froome’s won since his last TdF, stop denying there is still more than possible one outcome to the future.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Bruyneel understands nothing about clean competition.Sweep21-12-2024
- Exactly. Remco won 3 WT races/stages last year compared to Pogocar's 19. Remco's single stage win in last years TdF earned him a meager 12 seconds over Pogocar who shellac'd him by 9 minutes in GC.Sweep21-12-2024
- Fortunately and as you point out, more than one strategy is possible and worth trying and I’m sure all concerned riders are well informed and counselled on this subject and don’t need such basic personal advice through media from an outsider.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- The main SPOTY award is "decided" by public vote but the BBC "expert panel" decide who you can choose from, that choice has an equal split of genders and is focussed on the sports BBC show and a disabled athlete. Oh yea the ubiquitous "Pub Games" candidate there too, Darts and Snooker are not sports. The other awards are decided by the "Expert Panel" again it's about the sports BBC show, cycling has had it. Cav got his for his years and achievements in the sport, not just that 35th TDF win. Unless the BBC get access to Pro Cycling it will never feature "adequately" on SPOTYslappers6621-12-2024
- Ahhh..... you have to understand the "strange" diversity concepts of the BBCslappers6621-12-2024
- Avoiding him is a good strategy, you get more wins and then you can compete in the TDF relatively relaxed. Pit yourself against Pogi and not only there will be no wins, it will be considerable mental setbackabstractengineer21-12-2024
- If you hold onto then, you blowup in a minute and then you finish 5 minutes down like Ben O'Connorabstractengineer21-12-2024