Aptly enough in a Swiss-themed resort, Dylan Sunderland showed precise timing to take the chocolates.
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The NSW rider broke away late on to win the Tour of Tasmania stage into Grindelwald for the second time.
The 22-year-old has also twice won the young riders’ classification and finished third on the Poatina stage.
“I enjoy coming here,” he said. “It’s never as easy to win a second time so it’s definitely nice to come back and do it again.
“I think the tour really suits me.”
Melbourne-based German Raph Freienstein added another third place to his prologue result to move into the yellow jersey and strengthen his grip on the National Road Series leadership.
A stunning sun-drenched 115.9-kilometre stage from George Town was dominated by a break of five who established a lead of up to 2:15 as the field of 79 meandered through the North-East only to get caught with 8km to go.
After some cat and mouse stuff on the category two climb off the West Tamar Highway, Sunderland (Bennelong Swisswellness) picked his moment to pinch the win with Ryan Thomas (Rabble) leading home the bunch.
“That was pretty cruisy really,” said Sunderland, of Inverell. “I was trying to set up my teammate Tristan Ward to have a go at the sprint but when I looked over my shoulder a bit of a gap had formed so I kicked and managed to hold them off.”
With his Inform Make teammate David Williams among the break, Freienstein said he was able to take things easy for the majority of the stage and was pleased to cement his leadership of both tour and series.
“I don’t have to win the tour to win the series so we have multiple aims,” he said.
“We definitely want to defend our NRS lead but would also like to win a stage. We’ve got three more left so plenty of opportunity.”
Margate mountain biker Kaine Cannan (Dulux TIS) built on his impressive prologue performance by finishing sixth to sit seventh overall (+12) as the leading Tasmanian, one place ahead of fellow Southerner Jonathan Butler (Rabble).
The 36-strong women’s field joins in on Friday as the tour tackles the 71.5km stage from Longford up to Poatina.