Stage 2                                   Tumbarumba to Tumut                                          69.1 kms

Start 9.30am

We had two stages today, so it was important to “leave some petrol tickets” for the afternoons stage.  We headed out the road at 9.30am today.  As the green flag dropped, signifying the end of the neutral zone, a rider swerved near the front of the peleton and about 15 riders went down.  Melchers was amongst the causalities so the peleton slowed to wait for her to be paced back on.  Both Emma and Vanessa were also caught in the crash, with Vanessa taking off a lot of skin and tearing her knicks to shreds.  Unfortunately, Vanessa was misinformed and told she was allowed to hold on to a car that was pacing her back to the bunch which caused her to be disqualified from the riding any further in the tour.

Shortly after Melchers rejoined the peleton, an attack of 7 riders including Wright (AIS) and Tadich (AIS) formed.  As this break didn’t threaten Hemsley’s GC position, we let it go.  Our main job was to protect Hemsley.  Providing the time gap didn’t get out beyond 2mins, we weren’t concerned.  About 5km later, a surprisingly swift move from Cath Marsal caught us all by surprise.  She sprinted down the side of the peleton and had 200m on us before anyone could react.  Her speed was amazing and she crossed to join the break away within a couple of minutes.

Marg called us to the front of the peleton to keep the pace up as Marsal could threaten Marg’s position if the break got more than 2mins on the peleton.  Amy, Emma, Vanessa and I worked hard turns for the remaining 45km to keep the time gap under control.  Alison Wright (AIS) won the stage, with the peleton finishing 1min29 down, not affecting Marg’s GC position.  I finished 21^st in the bunch.