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!

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