Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) held off a chasing elite group after a late race attack to win the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, with Sunday marking the first victory for the Australian WorldTour team at its home one-day WorldTour race.
The Swiss champion stayed as cool as possible even though temperatures were nudging 40°C on Sunday. He waited to make his move from the whittled-down peloton once his teammate Chris Harper was reeled in the third time up the Challambra Crescent climb. Then, with eight kilometres to go, Schmid powered away from a 12-rider group, building up a lead of a maximum of 15 seconds as the group behind him could not get organised to close down the gap.
With the chasing group closing in, Schmid waited to celebrate after he crossed the finish line, crossing three seconds ahead of his closest rivals who were opening up the sprint for the remaining podium places.
Aaron Gate (XDS Astana) won the reduced bunch dash for second place, edging out defending champion Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) who took third.
In preparation for the Australian summer block of racing which concluded with the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Schmid had come to Australia "quite early" to prepare for the expected heat and it paid off.
“The team helped me also to prepare this well," he said. "It was a big, big race for me, big race for the team. So super happy that we could put some results together on the last day.”
Two years ago, Schmid also made a late race attack but that time he was caught in the final sprint to the line and had to settle for 14th place.
“It didn't work out well, I got caught with like 300 to go,” Schmid said of his attack in 2023. “So I just went super deep until like one K to go, because I knew that the finishing straight isn't easy so I think that helped, definitely.”
“I knew from last time when you go hard over the top, you can take a few seconds, but this time I waited a bit too long, maybe. So I had to wait till the feed zone was over, and then I tried to [use] my extra weight to advantage. I think the climbers suffer a bit more on the downhill, so I took this opportunity and it worked out.”
How it unfolded
With the temperature forecast to hit a maximum of 38°C and already 35°C at the start, the ice vests were out pre-stage and the ice stockings in the back of the jerseys were not so much creating lumps as towering mounds for some riders.
There was little hesitation, though for neo-pro Andrea Raccagni Noviero (Soudal-QuickStep) with the rider who was wearing number 13 leaping out of the 94-rider field soon after the flag had dropped. Despite being out there alone the Italian U23 time trial champion quickly opened the gap, stretching out to over seven minutes at one point as the peloton swept toward the coast.
As Raccagni Noviero turned off Great Ocean Rd with around 130km to go and headed towards Bells Beach, the gap was still holding at around six minutes, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe sending a rider to the front and Lidl-Trek lined up behind.
Forging away solo, Raccagni Noviero extended his margin to a maximum of 7:45 with 104.5km to go, as the pace increased in the single-filed peloton.
Picnic PostNL, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and Lidl-Trek each put a rider at the head of the peloton, taking turns setting the pace, with the entire Israel-Premier Tech team lined up behind them. However, as the gap to the solo breakaway remained stubborn, conversations between teams and riders signalled the need for more horsepower to accelerate the chase but no other teams came to the forefront.
Facing headwinds and suffocating conditions with temperatures hitting 39°C, the peloton gradually chipped away at the gap, bringing it down to just over five minutes by the halfway point of the 184km race. Meanwhile, clouds began to gather, scattered showers appeared in the area, and the threat of a thunderstorm loomed but never materialised.
The gap tumbled as 21-year-old Raccagni Noviero, suffering from the heat and the effort put in during his 100+ kilometres solo flyer, held one minute and 30 seconds on the peloton at the bottom of Challambra Crescent climb. Meanwhile, behind, teams jostled to position their team leader as they sped towards the ascent, the first of four times up the infamous climb.
An attack by EF Education-EasyPost announced that the race entered its next phase on the descent, with the peloton flying at speeds of 91kph, catching Raccagni Noviero with 69 kilometres to go.
A series of attacks animated the front, with Oliver Bleddyn (ARA Australian Cycling) and Pieter Serry (Soudal-QuickStep) escaping and quickly getting a small gap as they crossed the finish line with three laps of the finishing circuit to go. The duo built up their advantage to one minute as Serry took top KOM points the second time up Challambra, with riders under pressure dropping off the back of the peloton as temperatures hit 40°C.
The escapees pair was reeled in 18 kilometres after their move with Ben Swift (Ineos Grenadiers) leading the chase.
Taking advantage of the chaos in the shattered field, Rudy Porter (ARA Australian Cycling), Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), Connor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers), and Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost) escaped with 46 kilometres to go. The four riders held 22 seconds on the peloton once again led by Lidl-Trek, as they crossed the finish line with two laps to go.
Walker faded the third time up Challambra, leaving three riders off the front with a 38-second gap on the peloton, reduced to around 35 riders, shattered by an attack by Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek).
Soon after, Harper attacked his breakaway companions, opening up a 35-second lead over the peloton as the bell rang for the Australian. Porter and Swift were caught by the chasing pack, which swelled in numbers as dropped riders regained contact with less than 19 kilometres remaining.
Harper was caught by the peloton 300 metres from the top of Challambra after a massive pull by Simon Clarke (Israel-PremierTech) to close the gap, splintering the peloton, and leaving around 12 riders to battle it out for victory. The front group included Bagioli, defending champion Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Tour Down Under runner-up Javier Romo (Movistar), Corbin Strong (Israel-PremierTech), Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers), Rémy Rochas (Groupama FDJ), Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL), and Mauro Schmid (Jayo-AlUla)
Schmid attacked with eight kilometres to go, taking advantage of the lack of cooperation in the group, gaining a lead of between 10 and 15 seconds. Behind him, tactical cat-and-mouse games in the chase group worked in his favour, as he held them off to claim victory.
“It was super, super hard. I only heard that in the back there are still teammates, so some teams still have two guys, so it's definitely not an advantage when they can do some burners. So I knew I need to keep this 10 seconds for as long as possible, and it worked out well.”
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