{"id":446231,"date":"2026-02-01T00:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T00:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446231\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T00:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T00:51:08","slug":"a-bit-bittersweet-josie-nelson-concludes-australian-season-opening-with-second-place-at-cadel-evans-great-ocean-road-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446231\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A bit bittersweet’ \u2013 Josie Nelson concludes Australian season opening with second place at Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final race of the Australian Women’s WorldTour summer, the Mapei Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race<\/a>, brought a repeat of the head-to-head battle that opened the month of racing at the Women’s Tour Down Under.<\/p>\n

That opening stage in Willunga saw Ally Wollaston (FDJ United-SUEZ) take on Josie Nelson<\/a> (Picnic-PostNL) and win, and Saturday brought a repeat of the result, with the Australian once again coming out on top.<\/p>\n

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23-year-old Nelson comes away from Australia with two second places and a third place on stage 2 at the Tour Down Under. She didn’t take the win she came so close to earning, but nonetheless, it’s the strongest season start of her career to date.<\/p>\n

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“It’s obviously a bit bittersweet, but I think we came here and all the girls have done great. I can’t thank them enough for supporting me out here in Australia, so I’m glad I can get some results for them,” Nelson said after the race, which ran 141km around Geelong.<\/p>\n

“I was looking forward to a head-to-head again, but she just came out stronger.”<\/p>\n

Nelson was up there among an elite 12-rider group, which also included Tour Down Under winner Noemi R\u00fcegg<\/a> (EF Education-Oatly) following the two tricky late ascents of Challambra Crescent (1.1km at 9%).<\/p>\n

FDJ had three riders in the group with Wollaston alongside Amber Kraak and Lauren Dickson, while several other teams \u2013 Visma-Lease a Bike, UAE Team ADQ, and Liv-AlUla-Jayco \u2013 could rely on two riders. Despite being outnumbered, Nelson was prepared for a finishing sprint, which, thankfully for her, came to pass.<\/p>\n

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“Coming into the final lap, I thought maybe [FDJ] would try some cards of attacking; they and UAE both had quite a few riders, but both teams were pretty much just pacing. That suited me better because I was just by myself in the final. So, I was happy with a bunch sprint,” she said.<\/p>\n

She expanded on the tactics of the final kilometres in a Picnic-PostNL<\/a> press release, too, noting that she had followed the moves on the late climbs after her teammates had set her up near the front.<\/p>\n

“The girls did a quality job positioning me into the climb for the final time, so I just followed at the front and was strong enough to follow a move, but the bunch brought us back in,” Nelson said.<\/p>\n

“In the finish, I just fought for the good wheels and launched my sprint, but couldn’t come around Ally. But I’m super happy to finish the Australian block with a podium and can’t thank the girls and the team enough for their support in the races!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final race of the Australian Women’s WorldTour summer, the Mapei Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, brought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-446231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}