Shaw wins in New Norfolk
Patrick Shaw, the current Scody Cup leader with one event to go, has won the gruelling 208km Tasmanian one-day race, the Launceston to New Norfolk Classic on Tuesday. The race was a precursor to the final event of the Scody Cup, the Tour of Tasmania, which begins on Thursday and runs until Tuesday, September 21. Shaw currently leads in the Scody Cup, after finishing first and second in the first two events, the Tour of Gippsland and the Tour of Geelong. The third, the Tour of Murray River, was won by Joel Pearson.
“I really have a lot of time for him as rider. He rode a tremendous race at the Murray tour. Some of his (Genesys) team tactics looked silly but they turned out to be brilliant,” said Shaw. “I am going to Tassie to win the Scody Cup. It means a lot to me. I want to have the title.”
Overall, Shaw leads the Scody Cup by 44 points over Pearson, but his phenomenal win in the build-up race, sharing some of the same roads as the Tour, is a good sign for his form. He finished the race in 5:30:25 with Chris Jory on his wheel and Eliot Crowther five seconds behind for third place. Prior to the race, Shaw had tipped his Virgin Blue teammate, Ben Dyball, as the likely winner of the race.
“Launceston to New Norfolk is an exciting race, very tough, but a few of those young fellows from New Zealand can really climb,” he said. “They won’t be bothered by cold and rainy weather either.”
Ultimately, Dyball finished in 13th, 6:41 behind Shaw, who finished in a four-man breakaway with a gap of 5:56 between the fourth-place Shem Rodger and fifth-place Cam Peterson, who finished at the head of the scattered nine-man chase group. More than 20 minutes separated the last of the chase group and the next rider to cross the finish line, the first of only 12 more riders to finish. Of the 61 cyclists at the check-in in Launceston, only 26 made it to New Norfolk, ten of them taking over six hours to finish.
“I never knew much about this event until today but, boy, it’s one of the best bike races in Australia. The course is so tough,” said Shaw. “This is the closest thing to emulating my dad’s win in the ‘Warrnambool.’ This is so exciting for me. To win a race like this really is special.”
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