With the race start time nearing and rain sweeping the course it was looking decidedly hairy for the final event but as luck would have it, the rain cleared just 45 minutes prior to the start and we had a great setting for the event. Salamanca Place, a beautiful historic part of inner Hobart, adjacent to the Constitution Dock and with a full view of Mt Wellington as its backdrop was a picture as the 50 riders left in the tour warmed up.
All the talk was about Danny Clark and whether he could repeat his stage 3 victory here in the criterium on the tight, but extremely quick course. Unfortunately there was a couple of other Clarkes in the field who had other plans for the final stage as we were all soon to find out.
After the introduction of those who had survived the arduous journey so far, the race got underway at 1:00pm and without wasting any time Hilton Clarke took it right to the very strong international field. Clarke was to show the 49 other competitors just how to ride a criterium to victory. Nathan Clake from Tasmania was first to go on the attack but was quickly joined by Hilton together with Peugeot rider Baden Burke. The pace was frantic and Hilton Clarke was in no mood to muck around, he was out to capture as many scalps as possible. The youngster had done extremely well during a week when the Jayco-VIS team was depleted to just three ridres and had really battled the odds. But today he was on a mission and with guts and determination he and Nathan Clarke lapped what was left of the field in just over 15 minutes of racing. All predictions of the other Clark winning the event were out the door as Danny joined a long list of riders who were rapidly dumped from this the final event of the tour. The predicted rain that was expected to cause havoc stayed away long enough as the enthralling race wended its way to a fitting climax. All the big guns struggled. Third overall Tighello was just hanging on by the barest of threads but second placed GC rider Karpets was unceremoniously dumped by the Clarke boys and was forced to withdraw. In the end it was a pointless exercise for everyone except Hilton and Nathan as the remaining handfull of riders going round the course were embarrissingly pulled off the course and only the two survivors were left to battle for the spoils of victory. In slight rain the two slowly circled the course for the final two laps in front of an enthusiastic crowd of spectators.
Hilton Clarke, having had tremendous support from team rider David McPartland and then Robert Boag was not risking a loss this late in the race and taking a chance he stayed on the front until swinging left into the short main straight. It takes a lot of guts to lead out in a one on one but the experienced track campaigner wasn't going to make it easy for the Tasmanian who was hanging just two centimetres off his back wheel. With a quick jump he headed for the finish line just 300 metres away.Sweeping to the right side of the course and hard on the barriers and with Nathan hanging on to his wheel he charged down the staight to the cheers of the fans to take a thoroughly deserved victory.
It was a fitting climax to a great five days of racing, an impressive tour that will highlight Tasmania as a wonderful place not only for cycle racing, but also for tourists who will fall in love with its simplistic life style and fantastic scenery all of which I was able to experience once again through cycling. Watch out for a special highlights package on Channel 10 this Friday night(8th Sept) or ring your local 10 network for a screening time.
Stage 5 Result - full list click here
1 Hilton Clarke.... 1:00' 00"
2 Nathan Clarke
3 Christian Lademann
4 Caleb Manion
5 Brent Dawson
6 Robert Boag
7 Denis Smyslov
8 Sergey Klimov
9 Anton Chantyr
10 Geffrey Burndred
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