A long tough climb on Mount Buller finalised the Victorian Road series Mansfield Tour on Sunday where Nowra Velo Club’s Jade Colligan finished the two days of racing in sixth overall position in the Elite Women’s A grade race.
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Jade was at this race as the only NSW rider in the elite women’s field which tended to isolate her at times in the windy conditions of the final stage.
The race started on Saturday morning with a 13.8km individual time trial. Jade always rides a good individual effort and she clocked in with 22min 8.3sec.
However Holden Gusto’s Sarah Gigante won this stage in 21min 21.6sec and Justine Barrow was just two seconds faster than Jade in 22min 6.2sec.
The Saturday afternoon stage was a hot 74 kilometres at 35 degrees and Jade admitted her legs were heavy. An eighth place finish saw her end the first day of racing in fifth overall position.
The stage to the top of Mount Buller had an early start and overnight rain had the riders starting on wet roads. This climb is long and Justine Barrow rode ahead to finish solo to win the stage and the overall classification for the elite women’s Mansfield Tour.
Gigante and Jade finished within a few seconds of each other in sixth and seventh positions but just over a minute and a half behind Barrow.
Gigante had the better time advantage going into this final climbing stage and she held on for second overall position while NVC’s Jade Colligan finished the tour in sixth overall position.
The Nowra Velo Club’s other representative at this tour was Aaron Coghlan who raced in the elite men’s B grade.
Aaron placed 16th in the time trial stage and after some difficult climbing ended the tour in 17th overall position.
The Nowra Velo Club resumes local racing next Sunday with the second round of the 2018 Optus series which will be a 53km handicap race on the Braidwood Road course. Race start time is 8.30 am and the duty officials will come from the Hanlon Windows team.
