It's a rainy day in the land Down Under, but it's only a short race and no wind to trouble the riders. The PCT season is ready to start!
Attacks fly off from the start Per and Demiri are the first two to get a gap.
Behind those two are De Marigny-Lagesse and Hayashibara.
Crowley and Maccagli have been riding off the front for a while, but 6 riders up the road is deemed to much for the sprint favourites.
As a result of that long chase De Marigny-Lagesse and Hayashibara are also caught. The peloton relaxes now which leaves the first two attackers as the sole breakaway riders.
Sureda then makes a move to give Simba two riders in the break. I guess he doesn't feel confident going against the top sprinters himself.
Brunel goes on a long attack as well which forces the peloton to react. Per and Demiri are spent now with Sureda now on his own.
Seems like the peloton decided to keep going and it's all back together now. We have 37 km left to go.
Sureda keeps going! He's been attacking non stop since he's been caught, but the peloton reacts every time. Meanwhile race radio has told us that Wisniowski has suffered a puncture. The Pole makes it back to the peloton, but some energy had to have been used there.
20 km to go and the sprinter teams have 'blocked' the front with their trains. It's not quite full gas yet, but the pace is high to prevent attacks.
30 riders have lost contact with the peloton. None of the race favourites though. We now approach the 10 km to go mark.
8 km left not much has changed as we see the trains from MOL, Assa, Trans, Lotto and Spark dominate the road from left to right. The likes of Wisniowski, Katrasnik and Varga aren't far behind, but it looks unlikely they can launch an attack.
5 km to go these are the trains left to right:
Spark: Edmondson, Afewerki, Coquard with Rajovic at the end Assa Abloy: Rickaert, Coutinho, Dainese Trans: Peng, Page, Zabel with Peak, Walls and Willwohl behind MOL: Baterdene, Stash, Ewan with Hodeg, Riabushenko and Van Poppel behind
The Lotto train was supposed to be in the middle, but Liu has lost the wheel.
Lotto are back in position with under 3 km to go.
Rickaert is done and Coutinho surges forward with 2 km to go.
We're under the flamme rouge. How long can Coutinho continue this lead out? The other sprinters are also down to their final lead out men.
600 m to go and Coutinho gets swamped and Dainese loses the front position. Gibbons emerges through the middle of the road as a surprise contender now.
With 400 m left Gibbons goes into the lead. Zabel looks good and Coquard still looking to reach max speed. Ewan is slightly out of position on the right side barrier.
Less than 200 m left. Gibbons still leads ahead of Zabel. Peak is making up ground and Rajovic is making progress next to Coquard.
But in the in the end it's Rick Zabel that claims victory! What a debut for his new team and a perfect start to the season for Trans Looney Tunes! Gibbons is 2nd, but that should still feel like a win for the CT team Bianchi. The final podium spot goes to Peak, his much talked about offseason training baring fruit here.
The other top 10 spots go to Coquard with 4th. Not bad, but expectations were likely even higher. Rajovic has to make his manager happy with a 5th place in his first race, meanwhile Ewan will surely be disappointed with this result on home soil and for a team like MOL who many consider title favourites.
Willwohl should be another happy camper with 7th. Less so for Dainese who had to have planned for a podium. Both Liu and Van Poppel will probably have wanted a bit more here.
Down Under Classic 
