Meyer Moves Into Yellow

Multiple track world champion Cameron Meyer has moved into the race lead after claiming stage one of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour in Bendigo this afternoon.

Meyer emerged from a lead group of 21 riders, who had a stranglehold on the entire day’s racing, in the final ten kilometres with Joe Cooper (Avanti Racing) on his wheel.

Despite little cooperation from his fellow escapee, Meyer timed the run in to the finish to perfection and courtesy of stage victory bonus seconds now holds the leader’s yellow jersey by four seconds.

“There was lots of attacks in the end and I just had to bide my time for the right move,” Meyer said.

“I love that sort of race. Twenty guys, sort of like it used to be on the track with the points race, trying to judge when to make that move and I made the right one.”

The victory ends a string of second places for ORICA-GreenEDGE this Australian summer.

“We know ourselves we kept running second,” Meyer said. “Beside the Bay Crits, winning that, we have had so many seconds and we were just looking for that elusive win.”

“I think it’ll start the ball rolling now and hopefully we should be in for a good week.

“I went and checked out Arthurs Seat. I know that’s a hard hill but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

A threatening lead group of 21 riders got off the front in the first 20km of racing and from then, their advantage continued to extend.

Major general classification contenders Meyer and reigning champion Simon Clarke represented ORICA-GreenEDGE in that front group, along with the support of Damien Howson.

The gap was eight minutes by the king of the mountain and less than 20km later had extended to 12minutes 40seconds as the peloton sat up after 100km of racing.

Despite some nervous times, the race went according to plan a happy sport director Matt Wilson admitted.

“What we talked about in the team meeting played out today,” Wilson said. “But it certainly didn’t feel that way in the car.”

“The race was aggressive from the start, we made a big selection and got everyone working and really decided the GC group early.

“We thought it would break apart a bit more on Mount Alexander, but it didn’t and we were a little under the pump with Avanti having more numbers than us. The guys rode fantastic and they put alot of pressure on the group and set Cam up for the big attack.”