On board with Michael Potter and inside the team car in the final stage of the 2019 Herald Sun Tour, where Alistair Donohoe rode in the break for most of the race, and took the most aggressive jersey for the stage to round out a stellar Sun Tour for the young Melbourne rider. 

 

37 degrees celsius, 4 laps of the brutal Arthurs Seat climb and a break away of 5 riders on the road including PRSC's Alistair Donohoe...

See what goes on behind the scenes of a world tour breakaway as Alistair holds off a chase group of 4, including race favorite Richie Porte, to secure a well-earned 4th on Stage 4 of the Herald Sun Tour, in our video with camnicholls.com

We caught up with Cam Nicholls to talk all things ACA and Pro Racing Sunshine Coast. He joined Ben Kersten for his local Sunshine Coast ride down the coast from Noosa to our team base at the University of the Sunshine Coast high performance precinct.

 

Thanks for the chat Cam! Cam will be joining us for the final two stages of the 2019 Herald Sun Tour so keep a look out for more videos next week. 

Fresh off his recent Australian National road race title, Michael Freiberg will be on the hunt for more glory in the Herald Sun Tour in Victoria this week.

The Pro Racing Sunshine Coast rider will headline the team’s squad at the 5-stage tour, the oldest stage race in Australia.

The prestigious race gets underway on Wednesday 30 January with a 98km criterium at Phillip Island.

The Herald Sun Tour is the second biggest stage race in Australia where the best few domestic teams are invited to compete with teams from the European World Tour, including Mitchelton Scott, Trek Segafredo, Sky, and EF Education First.

Freiberg will join the squad for his first race with the team since winning the prestigious National road race title in early January. He will be looking for a result against the best in the world with his sights set on a stage win.

Michael Potter will also line up for PRSC hot off finishing his first Tour Down Under, where he was selected in the Australian national composite team. Potter also placed second in the recent U23 National road race and will be looking to test his legs after a tough month of racing, particularly on the hilly Arthurs Seat stage on Saturday.

Freddy Ovett will also be back looking to make his stamp on the race where he placed 10^thoverall in 2018. Alistair Donohoe is also one to watch for PRSC; Donohoe is in strong form and his experience on his home town roads will play to his advantage.

They will be joined by Jono Noble, Ashley Mackay and Taj Jones, the youngest member of the squad who will make his Herald Sun Tour debut.

PRSC managing director, Ben Kersten, said the team is looking forward to the week ahead.

“This is one of our favourite races of the year. We have had a brilliant start to the season and are taking our best performers from the National road titles with us. The boys are firing and we can’t wait to get out there and see what we’ve got,” he said.

“We have a great mix of riders with us here, there’s some of our younger developing riders like Taj who is riding his first JHST and will learn so much from this experience. Right through to Freddy, Potter and Freiberg who will be serious contenders for stage wins, so we have a lot to be excited about this week,” he said.

PRSC Team

• Michael Freiberg, 28
• Freddy Ovett, 25
• Michael Potter, 21
• Alistair Donohoe, 23
• Jono Noble, 22
• Ashley Mackay, 23
• Taj Jones, 18

The Course

Starting and finishing with criterium-style stages in Phillip Island and Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens, and includes two stages crucial to the general classification battle on days two and four.

The second stage from Wonthaggi to Churchill includes a final, gravel road climb before a steep descent to the finish line. Day four, the Queen stage, returns to the Mornington Peninsula and includes four ascents of the notorious Arthurs Seat, including the final climb to the finish.

Wednesday 30 January – Phillip Island (97.9km) 1:30pm AEDT

Thursday 31 January – Wonthaggi to Churchill (127km) 10:00am AEDT

Friday 1 February – Sale to Warragul (161.6km) 10:00am AEDT

Saturday 2 February – Cape Schanck to Arthurs Seat (112.9km) 12:30pm AEDT

Sunday 3 February – Melbourne Botanic Gardens (89.1km) 1:30pm AEDT

The Competition

It is the strongest field to line up for the JHST in several years. The general classification will be a hotly contested battle, with climbers Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) and Michael Woods (EF Education First) starting as favourites.

Broadcast & Live Stream

The final hour of every stage will be live streamed at heraldsuntour.com.au.

Stages 1, 2 and 3 will be broadcast on SBS On Demand. Stages 4 and 5 (Saturday and Sunday) will be broadcast live on SBS Viceland. Check local programs for updated broadcast times.

We are excited to announce that Pro Racing Sunshine Coast has been invited as one of fourteen international UCI teams for Zwift’s new KISS Super League.

Zwift was launched in December 2014 and the KISS Super League is a first in the world of cycling eSports as it features a dedicated competition featuring actual professional cycling teams and their riders competing remotely from anywhere in the world.

As opposed to traditional racing events, team members do not need to be in the same location, they simply line up remotely from wherever they are located in the world using their smart trainersto race their bikesin real timewhile other Zwiftusers can log in and follow the action live. The Zwift platform is an interactive virtual reality world, all riders appear as avatars and they can see the other riders around them, creating a reality similar to racing in the real world.

Managing director Ben Kersten said PRSC will contest the 10-race series, against professional teams including Team Dimension Data, Israel Cycling Academy, Cofidis, Team Wiggins, Hagens Berman Axeon and Canyon.

“E-sports are super hot right now, we are really excited to be included in the first ever Zwift Super League, Pro Racing Sunshine Coast is one of only two Australian teams to have been invited into the league which is incredible considering we are only in our second season. To have been selected for the league alongside some of the world’s top teams shows the high level of respect we have achieved in such a short time frame.

“it’s a huge honour, not only for the excitement of being involved in such a progressive and exciting concept but also for the exposure this will give both our team, our sponsors, our riders and the Sunshine Coast region. Amateur cyclists from around the world will be watching and cheering, getting to know our riders, our team and the name Pro Racing Sunshine Coast. It is really huge for us.”

“We have been involved with Zwift for a number of years now in different capacities and we are really excited to grow with them as our team also grows,” Ben added.

The series will launch with a live event in London on January 23, 2019 coinciding with the first race of the series, a 40.2km event.

Each team will be made up of 8 riders, who will be selected prior to each round. For each round of races, four riders from each team will race to score points for their team in the overall standings.

Pro Racing Sunshine Coast will field an all-star team for the first race including Australian national champion Michael Freiberg, World Champion Alistair Donohoe, Freddy Ovett and Jono Noble.

Racing continues for PRSC this week, and we will be out to build on the stunning start to the 2019 season when we head off to our first international tour of the year, the NZ Cycle Classic. 

The UCI NZ Cycle Classic is a huge tour on the team’s calendar, and is contested by many of the top Continental teams from Australia and Europe. The 2018 NZCC was successful for us with Cameron Scott and Kelland O’Brien picking up coveted stage wins, and we will be out to better this result this year.
The five-stage NZ Cycle Classic will commence on Wednesday 23 January and conclude on Sunday 27 January, 2019. The team for NZ includes Amarni Drake, Ashley Mackay, Zack Gilmore, Taj Jones, Kai Chapman and Matthew Rice. Live streaming isn't available for this tour, so follow us on Instagram for updates.

How Nationals was won by Stu Shaw on Exposure

 

      

 

 

PRSC rider Michael Potter has been selected to take the final place in the UniSA composite squad for the 2019 Tour Down Under.

The selection was made following Potter’s stellar road Nationals campaign, where he narrowly missed out on the gold medal in the U23 men’s road race. Potter placed second behind Nick White, who has also been selected.

Potter also placed 8^thin the U23 men’s time trial.

The UniSA team is a composite team selected by Cycling Australia officials to grant opportunities to riders not signed to World Tour teams.

The selection is a huge opportunity for Potter to perform on the big stage and be noticed by some of the world’s best teams.

“I’m super excited to have been included in the team, it’s one of the highlights of my career for sure and I’m looking forward to showing what I have,” Potter said.

PRSC Managing Director, Ben Kersten, said the team believes this will be a stepping stone for the young rider.

“It's a huge opportunity for Michael Potter to ride the TDU against some of the world's best riders," said PRSC director Ben Kersten.

"He's a super talent and only 21 years old; the bigger World Tour teams are sure to take notice of him during the race," he said.

We are also disappointed to confirm that PRSC’s Michael Freiberg has missed selection for the team, despite his stunning gold medal win in the men’s elite road race.

Historically, winners of the prestigious road race are most often granted a place in the team for the TDU if they are not already confirmed to ride TDU for their own team.

In this case, Cycling Australia awarded the final place to Potter as an U23 rider, to support their junior development strategy.

Freiberg has been named as the first reserve for the team should one of the confirmed riders be injured or unavailable before the commencement of the tour.

The Tour Down Under is Australia’s most prestigious stage race and one of only two with World Tour status. It is contested by many of the biggest World Tour teams from Europe and the US.

The 2019 Tour Down Under kicks off in Adelaide on Sunday 13 January and concludes on Sunday 20 January.

 

Michael Freiberg has ridden the race of his career to take the gold medal in the 2019 National road race in Buninyong this afternoon.

Freiberg, in his debut race for the Pro Racing Sunshine Coast team, was in the early break that attacked on the first lap of the 16 lap, 185km course.

Together with Team Bridgelane’s Chris Harper and Mitchelton-Scott’s Luke Durbridge and Alex Edmondson, both former winners of the race, the group gained a solid advantage over the main peloton which they maintained until the final 50km.

Attacks from the main bunch began with 5 laps to go, and cracks began to appear in the breakaway. The break of 4 riders was quickly joined by Mitchelton-Scott’s Cameron Meyer, and two riders from the Team Bridgelane squad.

By the final lap, the break had consolidated back to just three riders, with Freiberg, Harper, and Meyer gunning for the podium places.

Freiberg was dropped on the last climb up the notorious Mount Buninyong and it looked like Chris Harper and Cameron Meyer would decide the gold medal.

But Harper and Meyer played cat and mouse too early and the Pro Racing Sunshine Coast rider blasted past them well before the finish to take a decisive win in front of huge crowds.

Freiberg himself admitted he thought the race was out of his reach when he was dropped over the final climb by Meyer and Harper.

"To be honest I wasn’t sure at all," he said after the race. "When I was coming through the (Fed)Uni I thought 'Ok, I just gotta secure third.”

"Then I got a little sniff in that home straight in the headwind and I was like what? Then I'm running behind them thinking no way this isn't happening! They're not going to let me come past them. But I managed to hit them with speed and Cam hesitated a little bit and I got a gap."

"I thought Cam was going to line me up and dump me but I managed to stay away. It's quite surreal actually."

Freiberg, 28, won the 2011 omnium world championship and 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medal on the track before he retired suddenly in 2012. He began a cycling comeback in 2017, where he won the National Road Series championship.

PRSC team director Ben Kersten was ecstatic with the victory.

“Freiberg is a complete freak of an athlete and we knew that when we signed him. He went into retirement just after he won his world championship, had four years off where he became a successful entrepreneur, and then made a comeback and was able to achieve this,” he said.

“Those kinds of riders only come along once in a lifetime and you need all of that grit, determination and passion to come from behind the way he did and win the biggest race in Australia. He deserves every bit of that green and gold jersey.”

“To have the physical and mental ability to do that is what makes a champion athlete, plus today he backed himself, never gave up despite odds that seemed insurmountable. It’s a ride that will go down in the history books for sure” he added.

Freiberg will be back in action at the National championships on Tuesday 8 January in the time trial, what is his key event.