It was a day with mixed feelings on Thursday in Australia for the Groupama-FDJ cycling team. In Campbelltown, Laurence Pithie achieved his best career result in the WorldTour, taking fourth place in the bunch sprint of the Tour Down Under’s stage 3. Doing so, the young New Zealander confirmed his good form before the last sprint of the race tomorrow. On the other hand, Rudy Molard, the team’s leader for the overall, was forced to withdraw from the event after a crash in the final. Sam Welsford claimed his second stage win.
From Tea Tree Gully to Campbelltown, another sprint was anticipated on Thursday on the Tour Down Under. Perhaps even the most obvious of the entire week. “On paper, it was the stage with the highest probability of a sprint finish,” Jussi Veikkanen said as an introduction. “This was the easiest stage to manage. We only had to be careful of the last 20-25 winding kilometres. We did a recon of the stage last week, so we knew more or less what we were heading to.” A conventional race first developed, with the early breakaway of Luke Burns, Tristan Saunders (Australia), Axel Mariault (Cofidis) and Stefan de Bod (EF Pro Cycling). The four-man group became a trio after Burns decided to sit up following the second and final KOM, after thirty-fifth kilometres. The peloton kept the remaining leaders within three minutes, then Saunders found himself alone in the front sixty kilometres from the finish. The Australian kept on going for a while before he was caught with thirty-four kilometres to go. “As for us, we were well organized,” said Jussi. “It wasn’t quite like that since the start, but today, the guys were 100% focused around Laurence. It paid off, first with Clément, then with Enzo and Fabian.” “It was very good today, everyone stayed in a good position,” confirmed Laurence. “Clément and Enzo did a great job riding at the front for a long time and keeping us safe. Then it was up to me and Fabian to stay towards the front and out of trouble. We knew it could be dangerous and that there could be a lot of crashes. Unfortunately, Rudy got caught into one”.
“I tried to stay calm”, Laurence Pithie
About fifteen kilometres from the finish, the peloton tackled the fast and well-known descent towards Campbelltown. In one of the very first corners, Rudy Molard was indeed caught in a crash with several Astana riders and the Australian champion Luke Plapp. As a consequence, he had to abandon. In the front, the peloton remained very compact ahead of the finish, and after a last pull from Enzo Paleni on the flat, the Fabian Lienhard-Laurence Pithie duo tried to find its way through. “Fabian kept me in a very good position, safe, then I tried to stay calm and follow the right wheels,” said Laurence Pithie. “I was by myself in the last two kilometres because I used Fabian earlier. I just had to wait for it to open up a little bit so I could move. Luckily, I found some space.” With the white jersey on his shoulders (wearing it by proxy), the “Kiwi” followed in the wake of Elia Viviani after the flamme rouge, alongside the Bora-hansgrohe lead-out train. “I was still a little bit boxed at the beginning of the sprint,” he said. “I was able to come out, but it was a little bit too late. In a super-fast finish like that, the positioning was super important. I’m happy with the way I stayed up towards the front and finished it off strongly.”
“A sprinter is never fully satisfied until he wins”, Jussi Veikkanen
Right in the mix, Laurence Pithie then claimed fourth place on the line, behind Sam Welsford, Elia Viviani and Dan McLay, but ahead of Caleb Ewan and Biniam Girmay. “I was able to do my sprint from a good position, and fourth is a good result,” Laurence said. “It gets better and better each day. It would have been nice to be on the podium but there are other opportunities to come. We’ll try again tomorrow, but it’s a good sign and I want to thank the boys for their work.” “Against riders like Welsford and Viviani, it’s really not bad,” said Jussi. “There are also some very fast men behind him. It shows that we are consistent and up there all the time. Now, a sprinter is never fully satisfied until he wins, and I hope that we can satisfy him from this point of view fairly quickly. Anyway, it’s very reassuring and it also shows that the work he put in this winter is paying off. We still have a sprint opportunity tomorrow, then next week in the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Race.” On Friday, the sprint in Port Elliot could be less contested than expected in the event of echelons. In any case, Groupama-FDJ will set off with five riders. “Rudy was our man for the general classification, and we will have to reorganize ourselves on that point,” added Jussi. “I hope he is ok and that he has a fast recovery,” concluded Laurence. Regarding the French road captain, team doctor Jacky Maillot explained later: “He suffers from a concussion with multiple and significant wounds, but no fracture has been detected. He will remain at least 24 hours under observation.”
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