Australia's inaugural ProVelo Super League (PSL) continued this past weekend with round 3 of the six-round series: the Spirit of Tasmania Cycling Tour (aka the Tour of Tasmania).
One of Australia's most prestigious domestic stage races, the Tour of Tasmania was last held in late 2023 – as part of the now defunct National Road Series (NRS) – but returned over the weekend as part of Australia's new top-level domestic road cycling competition. The PSL describes itself as the "road to the WorldTour" and the top U23 riders in this year's series – male and female – will earn a development contract with the GreenEdge organisation.
Here's a summary of how the four-stage 2025 Tour of Tasmania played out.
Women's race
Stage 1 was a criterium held in Devonport on Friday evening and saw Keely Bennett (Meridian Blue-99 Bikes) win a bunch sprint ahead of Sophie Marr (Praties) – a stage winner in round 1 of the PSL in Adelaide – and Alli Anderson (Butterfields-Ziptrack).
The stage 2 road race around Sheffield came down to a reduced bunch sprint with the same podium as stage 1, this time with Sophie Marr taking the stage win, ahead of Bennett and Anderson. Bennett retained her overall lead.
Stage 3 was a flat 4.25 km individual time trial in Devonport, raced on road bikes on the same day as the stage 2 road race. Again it was the same three riders on the podium – this time with Australia's U23 ITT champ Alli Anderson taking the win, five seconds ahead of Bennett and Marr. Bennett again held on to her GC lead.
The fourth and final stage was the queen stage of the race, finishing with the 16 km Golden Valley climb. The wet and misty stage was won by 18-year-old individual rider Lauren Bates who won the sprint from a reduced group. Marr was second and Rhylee Akeroyd (Meridian Blue-99 Bikes) third. With Bennett dropped from the lead group, Marr went on to win the tour by 10 seconds ahead of Anderson (who also finished in the lead group), while Bates also finished on the final podium after her stage win.
If you haven't already, be sure to check out our in-depth feature article about Bates, one of the rising stars of Australian cycling.
Here's the final GC for the women's Tour of Tasmania:
And here's how the PSL leaderboard looks after three rounds. Note that the riders with asterisks next to their names are U23 riders and therefore eligible for the GreenEdge contract (a year with the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team in this case).
Men's race
Kurt Eather (Ccache-Bodywrap) took out the first stage of the men's Tour of Tasmania, winning the Devonport crit ahead of Melbourne to Warrnambool winner Blake Agnoletto (Brennan) and Zach Marriage (Butterfields-Ziptrack).
For some reason, some of these highlight videos seem to start a little earlier than their creators probably intended ...
In a hard and attritional stage 2 road race, GreenEdge-bound Hamish McKenzie (racing for the Tasmanian Institute of Sport) got away solo from a thinned down lead group to win the stage by 20 seconds ahead of Jack Ward (Brennan) – who'd attacked on his own earlier – and Marriage. The stage win put McKenzie into the overall lead with two stages remaining.
The 4.25 km stage 3 ITT was won by Oli Bleddyn (Brennan) – part of Australia's gold-medal-winning team pursuit squad at the Paris Olympics – with Marriage again reaching the podium in second (11 seconds behind) and Agnoletto in third. McKenzie remained in the lead coming into the final stage.
On the tour-ending Golden Valley climb, MTBer turned roadie Jack Ward attacked 7 km from the finish, got away, and won the stage by 17 seconds ahead of Marriage and Ollie Sims (Cobra9-Leigh Surveyors). McKenzie cracked on that final climb, dropping out of the overall lead, leaving Ward to win the tour overall. It was close though – Marriage finished the race just one second behind.
Here's how the final GC looked:
And here's the overall PSL leaderboard with half of the inaugural men's PSL now complete. Again, riders with asterisks are eligible for the GreenEdge contract (a stagiaire ride with the WorldTour team in the case of the men).
The 2025 PSL continues March 7-9 with the Harbour City GP, a three-stage race held in Sydney. This fourth round of the six-round PSL is being billed as the first elite road cycling event in the New South Wales capital since the NSW Grand Prix Series was last held in 2013.
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