The decisive, queen’s stage of the Santos Tour Down Under was held today in Australia where the peloton passed the main climb of South Australia Old Willunga Hill (3 km, 7% average gradient) twice. Team Katusha’s rider Tiago Machado achieved a good result, taking 7th place atop the climb, 24 seconds behind the stage winner Richie Porte from Sky.
"I am satisfied with my result. Today I tried to show my maximum for this moment and I think I did my best to get the highest possible place. I want to thank my team for perfect help in today’s stage. The guys supported me the entire day. This is my first race in the season, but now already I feel my form is increasing day by day. I think the beginning of the year is really good and I hope better results are coming," said Tiago Machado.
"First of all I would like to note a very good work of our team. The riders were concentrated, motivated and did a really strong race, providing a great support to our leader during the stage as well in the final part of the race. I think we can be happy with the result. Tiago did all he could today. Richie Porte and other Australian riders are in great shape now, while our riders are still working on their form to get a high level for the most important European races. Tomorrow we have two objectives – to keep Tiago in the top ten of the general classification and to fight in the sprint final," added sports director of Team Katusha Gennady Mikhaylov.
The crucial moment of the race was the attack of Richie Porte with 1 km to go, leading to his solo stage victory. Race GC leader Rohan Dennis from BMC was second, finishing 9 seconds behind the winner. Ruben Fernandez from Movistar took the third place, loosing 16 seconds. Team Katusha’s leader Tiago Machado was 7th.
This result allowed Machado to move up in general classification into 8th place, 46 seconds behind Rohan Dennis who saved his lead in the overall.
Tomorrow the Tour Down Under 2015 ends with a final stage in Adelaide.
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