Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race: Dries Devenyns finally gets his day to shine
Dries Devenyns has been a loyal lieutenant for so long but when his teammate couldn’t win the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race he grabbed his opportunity to be the hero.
Cycling
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For years he’s been made to work for his chasing sprinter, but Sam Bennett’s loss was Dries Devenyns’ gain at a windblown Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
Irish star Bennett’s failure to stay in touch with the front group with 25km remaining in a breathless 171km race gave his Deceuninck-Quick-Step lieutenant a rare shot at victory that Devenyns didn’t waste.
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The Belgian catapulted across to lone escapee Pavel Sivakov inside the final 5km and then won the two-man sprint on the Geelong waterfront.
Behind, South African Daryl Impey finished third for the third consecutive year, while 2018 champion Jay McCarthy was four seconds back in sixth.
Caleb Ewan finished seventh, 25 seconds behind Devenyns.
“For three years I was having good legs in this race and being at the front, but I was always holding back, waiting for my sprinter, waiting for my sprinter,” Devenyns said afterwards.
“But this time he didn’t come back, so it was a super nice experience to take the win.
“It’s a very special day for me. I like this race a lot and each time I’m here I make a good effort.
“Last year I was here for (Elia) Viviani and the year before for Viviani. But this year we were in a group and it didn’t feel like Sam (Bennett) was coming back, so I got involved for the victory and I’m happy to sprint for it and take it.”
With a strong wind blowing from the north west, the race was set alight by Team Ineos on the road to Barwon Heads.
With the peloton repeatedly splitting and reforming, inspired Aussie teenager Carter Turnbull was making his own race, joining an initial three-man break with his Australian national team teammates Connor Leahy and Rudy Porter.
When that trio was closed down by a rampant Ineos, Turnbull attacked again to join another teammate, Elliott Schultz, and the pair kept the peloton at bay until 40km to go.
Not long after Turnbull was caught, Impey’s Mitchelton-Scott picked up where Ineos had left off, splitting the field for good with 25km remaining on the windy descent of Challambra Crescent.
It created a 17-man breakaway group that the Aussie team had five riders in.
Elite sprinters Ewan and Viviani were sitting pretty in that group until Mitchelton-Scott climber Simon Yates’ ferocious attack on the last climb up Challambra Crescent saw the dangerous duo gapped.
But Yates paid for his effort and when he was dropped on the next climb up Melville Avenue with 6km remaining, it left teammate Impey isolated in a game of cat and mouse behind Sivakov and Devenyns.
“It’s a shame we didn’t work properly together there at the end because I think I had the best legs out of the guys there,” Impey said.
“I thought everything was pretty good until that last climb, but unfortunately we lost Yatesy there and then it was a battle between the faster guys.
“Simon did a great job. I think it just caught up with him on the last one, but that’s bike racing. You go all-in and that’s how it is.”