Simon Gerrans celebrates fourth tour success

Gerrans has now won the race four times, three of those successes coming in the colours of the Australian WorldTour team which he joined from Team Sky when it was established in 2012.

Simon Gerrans won the Tour Down Under, but his victory wasn’t the only standout performance of the week in Australia.

In Sunday’s sixth stage, a 90km circuit race in Adelaide, Ewan produced his trademark high-octane finish to book end with another bunch sprint win – taking his tally of victories to seven so far this year.

Gerrans won the third and fourth stages, making him the first rider in six years to win on successive days in the Tour.

Simon Gerrans is on track to win a record fourth Santos Tour Down Under with back to back stage wins.

In the general classification, Gerrans (13:41.58) leads fellow Australians Jay McCarthy of Tinkoff (14 seconds back) and Rohan Dennis of BMC (26 seconds behind the leader).

His points jersey win at the Giro d’Italia in 2015 is a testament to the fact that he’s a sprinter who can get himself over hills, and with that he could find himself a contender for Milan-San Remo in March.

Dennis, who dropped to 16th place overall at 1m 3s on Saturday, invested his last energies into helping Porte with a last dig to set help set him for the last climb. “Obviously it didn’t go to plan [on Friday] when I had a time gap on the line, but the BMC guys were absolutely incredible”.

Ewan won the stage by about three bike lengths, beating Australian Mark Renshaw (Dimension Data) who took second and Italian Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) who paced fifth.

“Missing (the race) hurt a lot, but I feel like I have really made up for it now”, Gerrans said.

“The boys did a sensational job today, they kept me at the front, out of trouble and delivered Caleb (Ewan) as close to the line as possible”, said Gerrans. “It was always going to be hard going into the race with two ambitions, trying to win sprint stages and overall GC with Simon. I’m so happy we came away with four stage wins and overall”.

I jest, of course, the quality of the field was very strong this year, so the fact that the Australians can dominate shows the strength of cycling Down Under at the moment.

The fifth stage of the Tour Down Under, with two ascents of Willunga Hill, invariably produces the most exciting racing of the week and generally decides the overall victor.