{"id":361564,"date":"2024-01-21T11:50:21","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T12:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=361564"},"modified":"2024-01-21T14:02:24","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T14:02:24","slug":"british-aces-unreal-finish-cruels-aussie-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=361564","title":{"rendered":"British ace's 'unreal' finish cruels Aussie hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain's Stephen Williams has carved out the biggest victory of his career, winning the final stage and overall category at this year's Tour Down Under<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old showed poise and patience on the final ascent of Mount Lofty, surviving the INEOS-Grenadiers' pace which shredded the peloton, followed by a vicious acceleration from Isaac Del Toro (UAE-Emirates).<\/p>\n

Williams held on to Del Toro and then outsprinted Jhonatan Narvaez (Ineos-Grenadiers), and Bart Lemmen (Visma Lease A bike) to win the stage and seal the ochre jersey.<\/p>\n

LIVE COVERAGE:<\/strong> Australian Open 2024, day eight updates\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> The 'dangerous' stars flipping tennis on its head<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Why Djokovic photo means so much to Medvedev<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

Williams' win takes his career a few steps forward, potentially opening the door for him to shoulder more leadership opportunities in races later on this year.<\/p>\n

The mature rider had to overcome illness before starting six days ago.<\/p>\n

"I think it's not so much a relief, but cycling's funny because they (victories) don't come around so often, so once you get a victory like this, you have to make sure you enjoy it and take it in but for me to win a tour GC at this point in the season, it's really important in my development," said Williams.<\/p>\n

It was a landmark victory for Williams – his first World Tour general classification win – and is incredibly precious for his second tier team.<\/p>\n

New Kiwi teammate George Bennett didn't hold back.<\/p>\n

"That was f—— unreal, Oh, mate, that's one of my favourite (victories). I've been a part of many, many wins at the Vuelta (Espana) with Jumbo and Tadej (Pogacar) but I don't think I've ever enjoyed one as much as that," Bennett said.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

Whilst Israel-Premier Tech competes at the Tour Down Under on the World Tour, the team is still a second-tier outfit, registered as a ProSeries team and relies on invites to world tour week-long stage races, like the Tour Down Under.<\/p>\n

But the second-tier team is back on track for promotion to cycling's top level after the appointments of New Zealander Sam Bewley and South African Daryl Impey as Sports Directors, both of whom bring years of on-road experience from the Australian squad Green Edge which has been credited to having cultivated a winning but balanced culture.<\/p>\n

Now Bennett, in his 14th year as a professional, believes the team is brewing the right culture to get them to the top level and stay there.<\/p>\n

"We are what Green Edge had a few years ago, you know, under (Shane) Bannon they had that Aussie culture and Kiwi culture. It's very similar," he said.<\/p>\n

"You know, we share this, this sort of all-for-one culture and that definitely was big in Green Edge, especially a few years ago, you know, and I mean it's still obviously there. But it's definitely what we are building and I think a lot of that is because we have guys like Sam (Bewley) and Daryl (Impey) who did come from that environment.<\/p>\n

"But I think everyone on our team has recognised it."<\/p>\n

While Israel-Premier Tech had a day out, for home team Jayco-AlUla, this year's tour Down Under will be one to forget.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/GreenEDGEteam\/status\/1748927959992500329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

For the third time in the Australian team's history, it finishes without registering a stage victory or nabbing a podium spot on the general classification.<\/p>\n

Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) failed to fire on the last ascent to Lofty, finishing in a large group that was unable to hold the wheel of Williams and Del Toro.<\/p>\n

Despite Jayco-AlUla's unsuccessful Tour Down Under this year, Australian fans can still celebrate Damien Howson (Australian National Team) and Jack Haig (Bahrain\u2013Victorious) both riding into the final top 10.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Britain's Stephen Williams has carved out the biggest victory of his career, winning the final stage and overall category at this year's Tour Down Under. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":361566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=361564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361569,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361564\/revisions\/361569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/361566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=361564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=361564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=361564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}