Tour of the Great South Coast
2015
TOUR OF THE GREAT SOUTH COAST
August 12 – 16
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
TOUR FIELD LOADED
WITH WORLD CHAMPIONS
West Australian Olympian Scott Sunderland heads a crackerjack field to contest the gruelling Lakes Oil-Fulton Hogan Tour of the Great South Coast from August 12-16.
Sunderland, 27, is using the 565-kilometre race as part of his preparation for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games where he hopes to represent Australia in the 4000-metre teams pursuit.
He will ride for the powerful Budget Forklifts contingent in the five-day Great South Coast Tour which has attracted 124 cyclists from all Australian states, New Zealand, Germany and America (field attached).
An amazing 10 Australian current or former world track champions – Sunderland, Luke Davison, Mitch Mulhern, Daniel Fitter, Mark Jamieson, Sam Welsford, Josh Harrison, Callum Scotson and Alex Porter and Alistair Donohue – are represented among the 20 teams who will line-up for the tour’s opening criterium at Mount Gambier’s Vansittart Park at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, August 12.
A record number of nine New Zealanders, led by the versatile Europe-bound champion Patrick Bevin, will make the trip across the Tasman for eight-stage tour, first held in 2012 and won by the West Australian Anthony Giacoppo who will ride for the Tasmanian-based Avanti unit in the 2015 version.
Bevin, already the winner of two Subaru National Road Series events this year, will start favourite for a third victory but Sunderland has the form, talent and incentive to upset the Kiwi’s aspirations.
The Tim Decker-coached Sunderland has an impressive record, winning track time trial gold medals at the New Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010 and Glasgow in 2014, and a world three-man team sprint championship in 2012.
He linked with Shane Perkins and Matt Glaetzer to finish fourth in the team sprint at the London Olympic Games and proved that he is a road rider of substance by winning the 11-stage Tour of America’s Dairyland from the gutsy New Zealander Alexander Ray in June this year.
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Sunderland also won the grand finale Sheffield leg of the hotly-contested four-race criterium series at the Fulton Hogan Tasmanian Christmas sports carnivals in January.
He will relish the Great South Coast tour’s four Campolina-sponsored criteriums - at Mount Gambier, Portland on Friday, August 14, Koroit on the 15th and the final stage at Port Fairy on the 16th. (course outline attached).
The multi-sponsored tour is backed by four municipal councils – the City of Mount Gambier and District Council of Grant in South Australia and the Shires of Glenelg and Moyne in Victoria. (sponsor list attached).
Tasmanian Wes Sulzberger, a former runner-up in the world Under 23 road championship who twice contested the Tour de France, will feel at home during the event’s four road stages – at Mount Gambier’s Blue Lake, on the picturesque trek from Mount Gambier to Port MacDonnell, through the hills from Heywood to Casterton, and along the Great Ocean Road from Koroit to Peterborough.
All four courses have resemblances to Tour de France stages.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Kipp Kaufmann
Cycling Victoria
Ph: 03 8480 3000
John Craven
Caribou Publications and Events
Ph: 0408 558 469
P.O. Box 6453, Highton, Vic., Australia. 3216 Telephone: 0408 558 469
Fax: (03) 5243 3338 Email: Web: