The third stage of the Tour Down Under from Unley to Paracombe traversed a distance of only 131km, but featured a steep ramp over the final kilometres. BORA – hansgrohe rode in support of Jay McCarthy, but unfortunately the Australian crashed on the descent 5km out from the finishing line. Although he was able to continue the race, he lost time in the GC and is now out of the running for the overall victory. In the final steep ascent, R. Porte launched a successful attack and took the stage win.
Result
01 R. Porte 3:14:09
02 R. Power + 0:05
03 S. Yates + 0:05
04 R. Dennis + 0:05
30 I. Schelling + 0:34
From the finish line
“I was involved in a crash yesterday, and it’s disappointing to have hit the deck again today. We thought that we had a good chance on these two stages, and the team worked for me well on both days, so this is very disappointing. I went down on the descent about 10km ahead of the finish line, and it was quite a heavy crash. I managed to cross the finish line with Erik, but several minutes in arrears. I have a lot of wounds and abrasions, and we will know more when we do an assessment at the hotel later today.” – Jay McCarthy
“The crash occurred in the finale at high speeds, and such incidents can be very dangerous. According to initial examinations, Jay has quite a lot of wounds, abrasions and contusions. We will find out further details at the hotel following a more intensive check.” – Jan-Niklas Droste, Team Doctor
“This stage was actually quite a good one for Jay, and so the whole team worked to always keep him in a good position. We were able to save energy during the stage and wanted to be among the first riders heading into the last 20km, as we knew that it would be tricky and fast over that section. Unfortunately, Jay lost contact with his teammates about 20km before the finish line, and then tried to catch up with them again. But he crashed about 12km before the finish and fell at quite high speeds, which means he was out of the running for the stage victory. With our strategy focusing around Jay, we had no other rider who was able to mix it up out front. As of today, we’ve lost our chances for a result in the overall standings and it’s really a shame for Jay and the whole team. We’ll now have to re-focus ourselves on attempting to pull out a good result on one of the other stages over the next few days.” – Enrico Poitschke, Sports Director
