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News & Racing<\/a><\/p>\n Sometimes all it takes to win or lose a bike race is a glance. <\/p>\n Any bike race, across the sprawl of its hours-long duration, is the accumulation of moments: choices here or there that play a role in determining an outcome. Sometimes these are insignificant to the point of irrelevance, and sometimes they decide everything; a puncture, a bump, a missed feed. Or there was today, in the men\u2019s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, where a misread glance at a sign in the final few hundred metres of the race was the difference for one rider between winning and not.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Visma-Lease a Bike\u2019s Matthew Brennan, who launched his sprint at 300 metres to go, thinking it was 200 metres, a likely win faded into second place. For one of the other form riders of the Australian summer, Decathlon-CMA CGM\u2019s new signee Tobias Lund Andresen, it was a slip-up that played perfectly to his favour: the likeable Dane continued his impressive start to the year with another win\u00a0\u2013 his second after stage 1 of the Tour Down Under<\/a>, and his fifth podium from eight race days.\u00a0<\/p>\n [race_result id=1172 stage_id=0 count=10 gc=0 year=2026]<\/p>\n Brady Gilmore, a neo-pro from NSN Cycling Team, rounded out the podium and was the best-placed Australian finisher, paying tribute to his retiring mentor Simon Clarke, who was riding his last race today. \u201c[He] taught me mostly everything I know,\u201d said Gilmore. \u201cI\u2019m going to miss him … I\u2019m happy to pay off all of the hard teamwork today with this result.\u201d<\/p>\n Sentiment aside, for those on the first two steps of the podium, it was clear that the final result hinged mostly on a little number on a little sign blurring from a three to a two. Brennan was a little prickly in the aftermath, keen to take off for the hotel\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a combination of fatigue, after 182 hard-fought kilometres at the end of several weeks in a different hemisphere, paired with disappointment. He began one answer with an audible sigh, before saying that \u201cwe tried, and just missed out. It is what it is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Only 20 years old but already one of the sport\u2019s revelations in just his second pro season, Brennan has a deep-seeded competitive drive. \u201cI mean, second place is never good enough for myself,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI feel like I could have done one place better today but [there was] a mistake on my behalf\u00a0\u2013 I thought the finish line was 100 metres closer. I thought it was 200 to go, but when I read it, it was 300. But once you go, you just have to commit at that point.\u201d If the finish line had been a hundred metres closer, the win would have been Brennan\u2019s, but results sheets don\u2019t list hypotheticals. \u201cI felt like I had really good legs there. So I\u2019m gonna get my eyes tested\u00a0\u2013\u00a0let’s say that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This post is for subscribers only Already have an account? Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n \n \ud83d\udc4dYep![\"Iain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Iain-Treloar-150x150.jpg\")
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