The opening stage of the 2015 Santos Tour Down Under saw an early four-man breakaway of Jack Bobridge (UniSA), Lieuwe Westra (Astana), Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEdge) and Maxim Belkov (Katusha) hold off an accelerating peloton at the finish in Campbelltown. Bobridge (UniSA) took the sounding victory. Niccolò Bonifazio (Lampre-Merida) won the field sprint for fifth.

Drapac had three riders finish in the field, Wouter Wippert, Travis Meyer and Timothy Roe. William Clarke crossed at +:17, Graeme Brown +1:28, Martin Kohler +5:40, and Jordan Kerby +6:11.

“It was an interesting day. A little frustrating to be honest, because we were hoping that move would be brought back by some of the bigger teams who had an interest in the sprint, or the GC. But the break played it well and we knew in advance that it was so hard to chase down the Gorge road, but that the onus wasn’t on us to ride, when there were still teams like Giant, Ettix and IAM there with fast guys,” Sports Director Tom Southam said. “We are in a good position still and look to the next stages.”

A bit of misfortune struck the team as some late race mechanicals for Kerby and Kohler caused them to fall out of the field for wheels swaps.

“We had some unfortunate luck today, with a few mechanicals,” Wippert said. “We tried what we could but we only had 2 guys left at the end and then the 4 off the front. Try again tomorrow.”

“I felt fine today but had a mechanical with 12km to go and had to change wheel. I tried to get back on but was too late to get back on. Frustrating day.” Kohler said.

Tomorrow’s stage starts in Unley, where the riders climb for the first 15 km to Windy Point then roll through Upper Sturt and on to what will be an epic finish in Stirling.