While some may have been expecting an easy roll out it was just 10 kilometres into the race when the first attack occured and resulted in the formation of a solid 11 man bunch going clear.Peugeot-Berri Ltd rider Glenn Chadwick instigated the big move prior to the stages only KOM at Melrose and as the bunch went over the top german riders Guido Fulst and Christian Lademann applied pressure to the bunch that would see the race hijacked by the eleven riders. In the bunch were four of the russian Milo team in Klimov, Karpets, Borissov and Smyslov, Australian Road Champion Robert Tighello, former triathlete and Nortas team member Karl Menzies, New Zealands Robert Reid and another Rusian International Edouard Gritsoun.
By the time the breakaway had reached Railton the tasmanian Karl Menzies had picked up a 10 second bonus thanks to two sprint wins. At Latrobe and well in control of the race the time gap was out to 4 minutes and 30 seconds but the sprint time bonus's were making the finish look a close one. Tighello was well in the equation picking up valuable seconds at both Latrobe and Deloraine as was Lademann. The chasing peleoton was now starting to make some inroads into the gap and the time came down to 3 minutes lead with just 20 kilometres to go. This would be as good as it gets for the peleoton and by the time the winners were to cross the finish line they would once again slip off the pace.
With around 5 kilometres to go the front group of eleven suddenly became five and the race for overall GC and a stage win was on in earnest. With less than a kilometre to go Tasmania International rider, the russian Edouard Gritsoun was hanging off the front by just 60 metres. On the long downhill run to the finish line at the Country Club Casino it appeared he would be reeled in but at 300 metres to go the four chasing riders hesitated just long enough to give Gritsoun the buffer he needed. He crossed the line just 2 seconds up on Tighello, Karpets, Borissov and Lademann. For the rest of the peleoton it would mean big time losses for day one. The final results saw Tighello in yellow leading the tour by just 4 seconds and with less than 30 seconds seperating the top 10 riders there will be plenty of opportunities for those riders over the next few days to have a real go at wresting the yellow jersey from the race leader.
Stage 1 Result
1 Edouard Gritsoun 3hr 25min 15 secs(41.802 kph ave)
2 Robert Tighello
3 Vladimir Karpets
4 Vladislav Borissov
5 Christian Lademann
6 Denis Smyslov
7 Sergey Klimov
8 Guido Fulst
9 Glenn Chadwick
10 Karl Menzies
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