“It’s far more a Jay Vine climb than a Rohan Dennis climb,” was how new race chief Rohan Dennis described the ascent of Corkscrew Street, which is the ultimate climb on Friday’s 116.8km stage 3 of the Santos Tour Down Below.
That presents a problem for the Adelaide raised Jumbo–Visma rider as whereas he could have stepped into the ochre jersey of the race chief after successful stage 2 from a power-packed break of 5, Jay Vine got here second which leaves the UAE Group Emirates Rider simply three seconds behind Dennis on the GC rankings.
“Tomorrow is an enormous day – we’ll see how Jay is climbing,” Dennis advised reporters after stepping as much as the rostrum on Thursday after his attentiveness to the transfer began by Vine paid off with the stage victory and total lead.
“As you noticed as we speak he [Vine] was fairly robust and he was the one actually pushing that break as a lot as doable so let’s hope I might be inside hanging distance excessive and possibly come again.”
“I shall be watching him and never stressing an excessive amount of… If he does get a niche, there’s at all times a little bit of time after the highest however I don’t need to give him an excessive amount of, so hopefully my legs agree with my head.”
Dennis has fastidiously focused his dwelling race this yr, which has been absent from the worldwide calendar for 2 years as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. He’s seeking to place within the prime 3 after successful the WorldTour occasion in 2015 and falling only one step shy of the rostrum in 2020 when the WorldTour race final ran.
The 32-year-old headed into stage 2 in fifteenth place total, although was well-placed among the many GC contenders. Then Hindley jumped proper up into the lead on a stage which, whereas not with out its checks, was not anticipated to trigger such an enormous re-shuffle within the total standings.
Stage 2 was additionally a stage that marked an entire reversal of fortunes for Jumbo-Visma on the race with stage 1 proving to be a problem and Robert Gesink crashing, hitting his head on the tarmac, and leaving the race.
“Robert is fairly good with the entire positioning and working into these technical issues however the guys rallied round rather well and did the whole lot doable,” stated Dennis.
Rallying round Dennis is one thing the workforce is more likely to need to do once more, with there being little question that Friday shall be a key stage within the GC battle. There are 2,442 metres of vertical ascent ending with the Corkscrew climb, topping out simply six kilometres from the end and with a mean gradient of 9.2% and a most of 24.4%.
“Mount Lofty [Sunday’s finale] goes to be a tough stage however I don’t suppose it was ever going to make the distinction with GC, or not an enormous distinction anyway,” stated Dennis. “Tomorrow is the massive one. Jay is aware of he has received to drop us.”
