The 24-year-old showed good form in Thursday's event, winning the sprint competition.
Melbourne's Formula 1 Grand Prix hosted a fast and spectacular criterium, three days ahead of another edition of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Australia's first ever World Tour one-day race. The riders were awaited by a 5.3km circuit, which they had to cover 22 times, and attacks flew in from kilometer zero, but it wasn't until lap 7 that several men managed to extricate themselves from the bunch and open a gap.
Among them was also Petr Vakoč, who contested the second intermediate sprint and won it. The maximum advantage hit the 55-second mark, but it was soon whittled down to just 40 seconds. Still, it proved enough for the break to make it at the final intermediate sprint of the race, won by the same Petr, which meant that the Quick-Step Floors rider came out on top in the sprinters' competition.
It was all over for the escapees with two laps left, and as expected, the winner of the race which took place on Australia's National day emerged from a bunch sprint. Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) was the fastest on the line, with Danny van Poppel (Team Sky) and Scott Sunderland (IsoWhey Sports) rounding out the podium at the end of the 116.6km race.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele
