Rowe fourth in Geelong

Luke Rowe led Team Sky home in fourth place after a thrilling conclusion to the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

Luke Rowe led Team Sky home in fourth place after a thrilling conclusion to the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

The team were full of riding and constantly attacked during the second half of the race, eventually placing two riders in the front group which contested the finish.

Rowe was first to open up his sprint but was clawed back at the line to take fourth behind winner Gianni Meersman (Etixx – Quick-Step).

Pete Kennaugh was arguably the most active rider in the race and launched a number of attacks en route to ninth place. Ian Stannard also went clear multiple times in the closing stages as a highly tactical race played out in Geelong.

The event provided the final 174 kilometres in the career of Cadel Evans and the BMC Racing rider claimed fifth place just behind Rowe.

"The guys wanted to have an aggressive race and that's what they did," coach Rod Ellingworth told TeamSky.com after the race.

"The weather was pretty bad from the start until about 20km to go. It was on and off raining all the time, and lots of wind which was predicted as well.

"The guys rode well and they were all pretty upbeat afterwards. Ian Stannard came back to the car about 10km before he went off the front saying he didn't feel too good but he turned that around pretty quick. He put in a good effort and that was the part of the idea to start moving the race at that time. Luke feels like he got the sprint a bit wrong but we'll take a look and go over it.

"But they did a good job and they enjoyed it. They all had good legs after Tour Down Under. A bit of what we wanted to do this year was mix it up and get stuck in and we were able to do that."

Hard racing

Early on wet and slippy roads led to crashes in the bunch, while reduced teams made the race difficult to control.

Cannondale-Garmin split things apart with 75km to go as the race splintered in the cross-winds. With riders all over the road Kennaugh attacked relentlessly and went solo, holding a slender lead as the race headed back into Geelong for three laps of the finishing circuit.

The British champ was finally consumed by a reduced lead group, from which fresh attacks continued to fire clear. Stannard was among those trying to create a gap and his move with 26km to go looked promising on a course which proved more challenging than expected.

Kennaugh gave it one last go on the 2010 world championship circuit before stringing the bunch out to set up Rowe. Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge) and Nathan Haas (Cannondale-Garmin) rounded out the final podium behind Meersman.