Impey takes his second Tour Down Under title in a row
20 January 2019 06:56
Daryl Impey's overall victory at the 2019 Tour Down Under on Sunday was the first time that a rider had ever defended their title in 21 editions of the men's event. The Mitchelton-Scott rider had begun the final stage with a 19-second buffer to eventual runner-up Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo), and with the day's breakaway hoovering up the bonus seconds available on the stage's two intermediate sprints, it was going to come down to the final climb of Willunga Hill to decide the overall winner. While Porte attacked to win on Willunga for the sixth year in a row, in an almost carbon copy of last year's race – when Impey and Porte finished with the same overall time, but Impey won the race overall in 'countback' – the South African was able to keep Porte within sight, and dug deep enough to latch on to second-placed Wout Poels (Team Sky) and finish third on the stage in the same time as a celebrating Porte.ADVERTISEMENT The Australian took a 10-second bonus for the stage win, and Impey's third place gave him four seconds, which meant that Impey beat Porte overall by 13 seconds, with Poels third, another four seconds back. Overnight race leader Patrick Bevin's injuries from his crash on stage 5 meant that the New Zealander was unable to follow the pace on the first ascent of Willunga Hill, and he fell well out of contention with more than 20 kilometres of the stage left to race. "I felt sorry for Paddy," Impey told reporters after receiving the ochre leader's jersey on the podium. "I was looking forward to having a nice battle with him, and it's very sad that he wasn't in his best condition due to his crash.
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