Tour of the King Valley Day 2: Carter Turnbull climbs to fourth in the general classification

Holding himself in good stead for this month’s World Championships, Carter Turnbull put in an impressive fight during day two’s Oxley Road Race ‘Strade Nero’ Circuit, finishing the stage donning the KOM and Young Riders jersey, coming fourth in one of two sprints, finishing 9th in the stage, and moving up to 4th in the general classification.

Five dirt road sections, fog within the hills, and cross winds presented challenging conditions for the boys, keeping the support cars busy and the 112.4-kilometre race highly contested.

Initiating the first break early on in the piece was Oliver’s, Mobius, and Drapac, with Kallum Parlevliet joining the front before the peloton came back together.

Raphael Freienstein picked up some bonus points with third place in a sprint, and Rudy Porter again proved himself as one to watch. Nearing the end of the dirt sections, he remained with the front group before an unfortunate mechanical meant a bike change pushed him back to the second group.  

A competitive, small group of six – including Freienstein – broke away from the group about 20-kilometres from the finish line, only to be swallowed up by the peloton as they entered the business end of the race.

With 4-kilometres to go, the front group of 15 looked like they might get caught by the second group that included Toovey (BSC), Welsford (ACA), and Freienstein, but they held off, with the group finishing together and Tristan Ward (BSC), Nicholas White (OLI) and Jason Lea (BSC) finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Tomorrow's final stage is a 92-kilometre road race with 3 KOMs and 2 sprints each with time bonuses (1st - 5 sec, 2nd - 3 sec, 3rd - 2, 4th - 1 sec). The race is wide open, our boys will be racing to win.

General classification results after day two

4th - Carter Turnbull (+17)

12th – Raphael Freienstein (+27)

59th – Thomas MacFarlane (+2:52)

77th – Rudy Porter (+10:26)

99th – Kallum Parlevliet (+12:17)

100th – William Moloney-Morton (+12:18)

106th – Stuart Smith (+16:29)

QUOTES

Patrick Lane (DS)

With a lot of time bonuses up for grabs, the GC is wide open. We'll be looking for Carter Turnbull and Raph Freiestein to take advantage of them and move up on GC. This will also protect Carter's KOM and Young Riders jersey.