A day after Tanner Putt finished second to Caleb Ewan, John Murphy went one better for UnitedHealthcare in Leongatha as he sprinted to stage 3 of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour in a photo finish ahead of Niccolò Bonifazio (Trek-Segafredo) with ONE Pro Cycling's Steele von Hoff in third. Pre-stage favourite Ewan crossed the line in sixth place.
There was no change to the top-ten on general classification after the 146km sprinters stage with Peter Kennaugh leading teammate Chris Froome by 13 seconds ahead of the final stage.
"I don’t think any sprinter is unbeatable so if you have the right team in front of you, you can win anything you want. My UnitedHealthcare team was unbelievable today, they took me into the corner in perfect condition and all I had to do was my sprint," Murphy said post-race.
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"Coming out of the final corner, I thought the corner was a little bit further from the line so the moment I came out of the corner, I had to start and boom, just go from there and hope I can hold it to the line. It was a really close finish with Bonifazio so definitely pretty happy just to have that photo."
Adding that he was initially unsure of the result, two-time USA national criterium champion Murphy added that the reaction of Bonifazio was a giveaway that he snagged the stage win.
“Usually in a photo finish, you know when you’re beat and you don’t know when you’ve won. I didn’t know so it thought maybe I had it and Bonifazio knew he’d lost so that’s what gave it away to me," he said. “It took me a minute to digest that for sure I had won and once I had it, I was happy to celebrate with my teammates.
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