Annette Edmondson retains women’s Tour Down Under green sprinter’s jersey, and wants to defend it for as long as possible

IT was a tough day in wild weather but holding on to the green jersey made stage 2 a success, writes Annette Edmondson.

Attackers at the bottom of the final climb of stage 2 from the women’s Tour Down Under on Friday. Picture: Santos Women's Tour Down Under

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AFTER a tough day in wild weather and the highly anticipated hilltop

finish up Mengler’s Hill I lost one jersey but managed to hold onto

another.

While I wasn’t too shocked to see the leader’s jersey go to Katrin

Garfoot after an impressive ride, I was happy to retain the green

sprinter’s jersey.

Coming into the Tour we were targeting the Stage 4 criterium in the

city, so to win Stage 1 was a bonus.

Now that we’re leading the green jersey category we’d love to defend

it for as long as we can.

Mitchelton-Scott tried many times to split the peloton in the

crosswind sections following the ‘Whispering Wall’ but it was a

reduced bunch coming into the bottom of Mengler’s Hill. We wanted to

honour the ochre jersey as best we could so the team put me in a great

position at the bottom and gave me every opportunity.

Annette Edmondson retained the green sprinter’s jersey after stage 2. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

I didn’t have the legs to go with the top girls, finishing 24th but my team-mate Amy

Cure was 12th. Amy’s a fellow trackie who hasn’t done much road

training, so she and the team were very happy with that result.

Saturday’s stage to Hahndorf has quite a tough finish so we’ll focus on

the intermediate sprint at 81.1km in Nairne then focus on the lumpy

final 40km.

If my legs are fresh coming into the last 4km, I might have a chance

but it will depend how I can back up after the last two stages. When

I’m road fit, this course would suit me, the KOM with 3km to go is

short and sharp, with a downhill run till the final 400m sprint

finish.

My team, Wiggle High5 will give it a go, there’s no point lining up if

you’re not in it to win it so here’s hoping for another good day for

the team!