September 17/17 20:40 pm - Crocodile Trophy Stage 2, Bouchard still in lead

Posted by Editoress on 09/17/17
 

Canada's Leandre Bouchard defends his Crocodile Trophy Elite Men's leader jersey during Stage two from Cairns to Atherton.

Riders arriving at the finish at Lake Tinaroo on the Atherton Tablelands recounted a brutal stage with massive 'ramps'. Once again the Crocodile Trophy lived up to its reputation as the "hardest mountain bike stage race" on earth right on day two. The 79km marathon stage started with a neutral ride out of Cairns towards the escarpment where the official start gun went and riders started the first tough climb towards Copperlode Dam. The the elevation profile was full of steep pinches and hills - 2100vm were to cover in the one day.

The top three in the general classification raced and crossed the finish line together at Lake Tinaroo in 4:09:38: Anton Sintsov (Rus) and the Canadians Leandre Bouchard and Andrew L'Esperance all clocked in the same race time. This means that the general classification will stay the same and the gaps between the top riders remain unchanged: Leandre Bouchard ahead of Andrew L'Esperance (+1:29.4) and Anton Sintsov (+4:38.2).

The amateur field showed strength with Erik Dekker (NED, A3) racing onto the overall fourth position in today's stage ahead of the Australian A2 racers Ondrej Slezak and Alex Malone.

In the overall women's field, Haley Smith (Can) finished in 4:32:06 ahead of Swiss amateur rider Daniela Erni Ruoss (4h55:10.0) and Kylie Lindsay from Australia (6h20:49.0). Yana Belamoyna did not start the day.

Locked gate causes problem
Slight upset at mid-race due to locked gates along the "Sunwater" waterways, the lead car with the crew that marks the race track was stuck. With the permits all in order starting the day, the racers were able to pass through and raced the remaining distance on an unmarked race course based on solely on GPS coordinates that the organisers had provided in the event lead up. As a consequence 13 riders unfortunately missed a turn and did detours between 5 and 8km before rejoining the correct race track.

Race organiser Gerhard Schönbacher commented, "This was a very unfortunate situation, especially as we relied on our permit documentation, however, we understand it was a mere miscommunication that caused the Sunwater gates to be locked. Those things can happen and I thank our UCI Commissaire Peter Blakey for handling the situation in a very professional manner. I have been informed that the 13 riders were able to provide GPS information of their race times and based on their additional kilometres had an average time deducted from their race time today."

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