Swiss Champion Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) has won Cadel’s Race, capping a solid team effort and securing Jayco-AlUla’s men’s squad’s first victory in its home one-day race.
Schmid opened a small gap at around 7 km remaining, soloing in to the finish where he finished three seconds ahead of a select chasing group. Veteran Kiwi Aaron Gate (XdS-Astana) took second, with fellow New Zealander and defending champion Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) rounding out the podium.
The opening WorldTour one-day race of the year was conducted in oppressive heat and retina-searing sunshine, the salty kit and drenched jerseys of the riders a souvenir of the end of the Australian bloc of racing. A sleepy start to the race was marked by a deeply-doomed solo breakaway from young Italian Andrea Raccagni Noviero (Soudal-QuickStep) who spent 113 km off the front, almost from the gun, before getting reeled in as the peloton entered the Geelong circuit. Four laps of the course – with its fearsome climb of Challambra Crescent – awaited for the bunch, with a number of small groups trying and failing to get away.
It was Chris Harper – the tireless Jayco-AlUla domestique – whose move would prove the most impactful. He was solo at the bell lap, building a lead of as much as 50 seconds, before it dwindled on Challambra Crescent and the catch was made. Soon after, his teammate Schmid attacked, opening a small advantage that he was able to hold to the line.
“In the last climb, I saw everybody was on the limit and I still had quite good legs on the climb – with Chris in front, he did an amazing ride today,” Schmid told a small cohort of media after the race. Harper’s ride, Schmid said, gave the team two cards to play: “if he could’ve stayed away over the top, I think he had a good chance to win this race also … He was a big part for this win because I could just sit back, and then when we caught him on the last climb, I knew ‘now, now is the moment’ and I’d see if I can get a gap, and it worked out … I wanted to try it on the really last kicker, but I saw that there were still some quite fast sprinters, so I knew I had to get away [earlier] to go for the win.”
That win was vindication after a disappointing Tour Down Under, which saw Jayco-AlUla ride aggressively but fail to pick up a win; their work here today was complicated further by the absence of Luke Plapp, who withdrew on race eve to seek medical treatment for an injured wrist.
Schmid excepted, it was an all-Kiwi podium, building on Ally Wollaston’s impressive victory in the women’s race yesterday. For Aaron Gate – 34 years old but a WorldTour debutant this year – it was a “pretty surreal” result; he’d been signed by XdS-Astana off his string of success in Asian races riding for smaller Continental and ProTeams, as the Kazakh squad tries to fend off a near-inevitable relegation next season. That’s a problem for the future, and sometimes the other guy’s just too strong: “Mauro had the nous and also the legs to do it – I knew if I was the one to try and close it, even if I pulled him back I wasn’t going to be sprinting for the win,” Gate said with a smile. “You always want to win, but I feel like at least the team’s moving in the right direction.” Gate’s director Mark Renshaw concurred, telling Escape Collective that “it won’t change a lot, but it’s definitely good to get some extra points.”
For last year’s winner, there was a similarly zen outlook: “I’m glad I could show I had legs today [for his new team] – unfortunately it wasn’t for the win, but you know, that happens sometimes. You can’t win them all,” Pithie said. With the benefit of hindsight, alternate realities present themselves, the product of a complicated calculus of what could have been, but the New Zealander holds no regrets for his decisions on the road.
“I probably could have followed Mauro, but you know, statistically, it’s hard to stay away from Challambra descent. I tried to rely on other people like last year and stay calm, but Mauro was too strong today,” he said with a shrug. You win some, you lose some – and after being hit by a car at home in Christchurch in the lead-up – suffering the “not ideal” outcome of a fractured rib – perhaps this was a kind of victory in itself. There was another happy milestone from the day: “pinning on number one this morning was super cool in the car,” he said with a smile.
For Mauro Schmid – who’ll wear that dossard if he returns next season – there’s now a win to cap his stint down under, having recalibrated his goals from the Tour Down Under to this race. After weeks away from home, having ravaged the highs and lows of heat adaptation training followed by the real deal, that’s a nice reward: one that is redemption for his team, a promising sign for the year to come, and a cool outcome of a bloody hot day at work.
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