QUOTES | Bryan Coquard, Phil Bauhaus, Javier Romo and Jhonatan Naváez on Tour Down Under stage 4
Cycling
Stage 4 of the Tour Down Under had a bit of room for everything. There was a crash involving GC favourite Jay Vine, an interesting breakaway including GC riders, some late attacks and a reduced bunch sprint won by Bryan Coquard. We take a look at the words of some of the day's protagonists.
Coquard was able to beat Phil Bauhaus and Jhonatan Narváez in a chaotic final sprint, where there weren't many leadout and there was a slight turn to the right mid-sprint. Laurence Pithie was relegated whilst Narváez very visibly complained about having been blocked. Meanwhile race leader Javier Romo was relieved that the GC fight didn't fully explode on the eve of the stage to Old Willunga Hill.
Bryan Coquard (Cofidis): "I'm very happy that I could win, because yesterday was not such a good day for us as a team, we didn't have the legs. The general classification is over, we lost that chance yesterday. Today I knew it was my best chance to win, so it's a perfect day. It was a very fast and hectic final. I think my experience on the track helped me to ride a good sprint. I didn't think much, I started at 300 meters but with speed. Others came back with high speed, but it was perfect like that".
Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain): Robert [Stannard] and I didn't get along well. I was a bit on my own, and tried to position myself in the corner combinations. I did reasonably well, but I was already at the limit. For me it is a step forward that I was still there. I think he (Coquard, ed.) was a bit fresher than me in the end. He is very good at these kinds of small peloton sprints. He probably suffered a bit less, so he had something left".
Javier Romo (Movistar): "I'm very happy, the objective today was to keep the jersey, my team made a very good team leading the race, it's not normal to see Movistar leading a race to keep a leader's jersey, now we'll see tomorrow in Willunga. I'm very happy with the work we've done today, we'll see tomorrow if we're able to keep the jersey."
Jhonatan Narváez (UAE): "That was special today, with the energy going into the sprint. It was full strength from all the guys and the team did a great job, that was our plan. We wanted to go hard into the last climb and then pull until the end for a chance to take the victory or bonus seconds. In the end, ok we didn’t get a chance at the stage win but it is positive that we took the bonus seconds. It is a hard climb. We have a good team so we have to think about how we can win the race, but we will give it our best shot.”
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Pic of the day 📸 Our Southern coastline was on show today ☀️#TourDownUnder #SouthAustralia pic.twitter.com/aaCnLla74Q
— Santos Tour Down Under 🚴🚴♀️ (@tourdownunder) January 24, 2025
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