Euride's tyros in Adelaide Tour upset

SA team Euride Racing caused the opening shock in the inaugural Adelaide Tour on Friday, stunning its more experienced rivals.

SOUTH Australian team Euride Racing caused the opening shock in the inaugural Adelaide Tour on Friday, stunning its more experienced rivals to snatch the Patrick Jonker team time-trial.

Euride, with six of its eight riders aged 21 or younger, stormed to a 16-second victory over Budget Forklifts and finished a whopping 41 seconds clear of season leader Huon Salmon-Genesys Wealth in yesterday's opening stage.

The former SASI team, ranked sixth in the National Road Series before the Adelaide event, upstaged its competitors to finish the 20.9km course from Cudlee Creek to Newton in 24min 19.8s.

Top-ranked unit Huon Salmon-Genesys Wealth had the advantage of knowing the mark to beat but failed to match the Euride rookies' blistering time.

"I'm pretty ecstatic really," said Harry Carpenter, who earned the yellow leader's jersey by crossing first for Euride.

"We know this road back to front. The course is very technical - knowing what corners we could take a bit quicker was definitely the difference today.

"We've been targeting this race for a long time because it's our home town tour. We were definitely hoping to come out and prove something today and it's great to do that."

Today's second stage takes riders on a 158km road race looping through Hahndorf, before tomorrow's city circuit kermesse. Carpenter said yesterday's boilover put Euride in a position to pressure the series leaders during the weekend.

"We now have four riders up there on GC (general classification) so we have lots of options," he said. "As a team we are very confident that we've got enough now to take out the whole tour."

In the women's event, Team Polygon Australia stamped its authority with a resounding 35-second victory.

The strong Tasmanian outfit, boasting London Olympian Amy Cure, 2011 series champion Grace Sulzberger and junior track world champion Georgia Baker, stopped the clock at 28mins 3.1s.