Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) tried to get rid of the sprinters in the final kilometres of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, but to no avail. Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quick Step) got piloted perfectly and won back the King of the Sprint throne, which he had lost in the second stage of the Tour Down Under. In doing so, he became the first double King in history. Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) was fast, but just not fast enough, and now has to leave his home country still chasing his first King of the Sprint title. Jasper Philipsen, the current titleholder, finished 45th, 1:04 down.
But … was this race really a title race, since only 33 riders finished in the time of the winner? Let’s take a look at the rules:
A final sprint is a mass sprint if at least (more or less) half of the riders that finish the race cross the line in the same group. Small time gaps as a result of the sprint and crashes in (the run-up to) the sprint are not taken into account.
Those “small time gaps” are important. Six more riders finished within 30 seconds of Viviani, so we can assume that they only lost contact with the peloton in the run-up to the sprint. 39 out of 99 finishers is still not “half”, though. However, there is another important rule to take into account (rule number five):
Although the King of the Sprint jury has the final say about whether a possible title race ends in a mass sprint – and thus, whether a possible title race is an official title race – it takes into account as many different views on the matter as possible, e.g. race reports, interviews, tweets about the race, etc. It is, therefore, not impossible that a race in which considerably fewer than half of the riders finish in the same group is declared a title race.
Because of a lot of household sprint names finished in the top ten, and most race reports mention a “reduced bunch sprint” (check Cyclingnews, for example), the jury had declared the Great Ocean Road Race a title race, and Elia Viviani the new King.
King of the Sprint 