Events

Reinardt Janse van Rensburg attacks at Tour Down Under

· By Press Office · 2 comments

For the 3rd year in a row, Richie Porte (BMC Racing) won the stage finishing stage atop Willunga Hill. Today it was Sergio Henao (Team Sky) in 2nd and Michael Woods (Cannondale) in 3rd place.

Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka were in the spotlight for the majority of the stage, thanks to Reinardt Janse van Rensburg. The South African formed part of the 4 rider break of the day, being joined by Pim Ligthart (Lotto-Soudal), Lars Boom (Astana) and Nelson Oliveira (Movistar).

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The quartet were able to get away after just 15km racing and would go on to combine well, forcing out a maximum gap of 6 minutes. The peloton had their work cut out but fortunately for them, a number of teams were willing to contribute today. Reinie and co. would reach the first of the two ascents of Willunga Hill with a time gap of 3 minutes.

On the climb it was Reinie who emerged the strongest after an attack near the top saw him go clear, the peloton now just 2’00” back with 21km to go. The front four came together on the descent though, with speeds touching 100km/h. The peloton, with the numbers advantage, had the upper hand now as they hunted down the 4 leaders on the loop back around to the start of Willunga Hill.

With 4km to go, the final climb was about to start and it was only at this point that the break would be caught. Our South African strongman, was the last rider to surrender as the race made its way up the final climb. Porte was clearly the strongest on the final climb, taking an impressive win. We had Cameron Meyer duelling it out at the front of the race too, eventually crossing the line in 13th, 23 seconds after Porte which puts him 12th on GC going into tomorrow’s final stage.

I managed to get into the break of the day with 3 other really strong riders. We had quite a big gap and when we got near the top of Willunga the first time I was feeling quite strong. The gap was coming down quickly though so I tried to go for it bit. The break just rode me down again, after that the strength out of the breakaway was gone and the bunch was coming really quickly so they caught us on the final climb. It was a good try but we couldn’t finish it off in the end.
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg – Rider

Comments

xcd

Jan 23, 2016, 6:15 PM

Nice to see he got the prize for the most combative

Mongoose!

Jan 24, 2016, 10:24 AM

Well done

 

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