A last lap attack at the base of Arthurs Seat landed Chris Froome the stage and overall honours at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour. Teammate Peter Kennaugh finished seventh on the final stage to slip to second on GC, 32 seconds behind Froome while Damien Howson's second place on the stage elevated the Orica-GreenEdge rider to third place overall.
Froome made his winning move at the base of the third and final ascent of Arthurs Seat, riding away from Joe Cooper (AvantiIsowhey) after the duo had attacked at the top of the second ascent of the three-kilometre climb. From the remainder of the peloton, that had been slimmed by Team Sky's relentless pace up the climb, Howson was the first rider to take up the chase of Froome.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better week as a team with Pete kicking things off early on going into the leader’s jersey. First and second on that stage and then obviously, winning today the final stage up Arthurs Seat is a really, really nice way to end off the week and also to be first and second on the general classification,” Froome said after collecting his first leader’s jersey of the race.
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Froome had initiated the move on the second ascent up Arthurs Seat in search of the KOM points, following the wheels of Cooper who had jumped out of the peloton. With the duo out in front, Froome explained that Sky's tactics to secure the overall victory then changed with the team backing him against last year's third place finisher.
"It was something that unfolded out on the road when I went for the king of the mountains points the second time up Arthurs Seat," Froome explained. "The team behind said, ‘listen Chris, just sit on the wheel. We are not going to ride behind, you are in a great position to go for the stage win and overall victory ‘ and Pete would bring it up behind. Massive thanks to Pete and the rest of the team obviously for giving me the all clear to go for that. I think, just general how the guys have ridden all week, they’ve been incredible. Really, really strong and they’ve basically been controlling the race from the word go."
The duo would arrive for the third ascent together before Froome took off, never looking back on his ride to stage and overall double. While Froome is more accustomed to the high mountains of France in July or Spain in August and September, he explained that the effort to win the stage still hurt.
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