The Czech VIG+ Racing team made it five straight stage victories from five attempts Saturday as Ivan Rybarik scored his second stage win at the Crocodile Trophy of 2008.

With the leaders in the general classification taking it easy during today’s 99 kilometer “out and back” stage from Chillagoe, VIG+ Racing showed its incredible depth at this year’s outback classic by stealing a stage victory with two of its domestiques.

Things didn’t exactly go to plan for the Czechs, when the man chosen to storm to a stage victory, Kejval Lubos, failed to deliver on a course suited to pure time trialists. Instead it was left to his helper Ivan Rybarik, to blow away the opposition.

The outback roads near Chillagoe

Photo: John Flynn

“I was supposed to be here as the domestique for Lubos, but now you see the result,” Rybarik said. “I am so happy that I have won the boomerang (the prize for the stage winner) here today.”

There was good news also for Australia and Austria with Merida Flight Centre’s Adrian Jackson fighting his way into second place and Austrian Alfred Schabauer third.

Rybarik, Jackson, Lubos and Schabauer were all part of a seven man breakaway which went up the road at the ten kilometre mark of today’s stage. The first to drop away as the pace lifted was Darren O’Grady of the Coopers Shimano Dream, but the other six held on until the last twenty kilometres.

One by one, the group dwindled until just Rybarik and Jackson were left in the hunt for the stage.

“I rested up yesterday and rode with our women’s leader Jo Bennett,” Jackson said of his tactics.

Cyclists pass by a majestic beast

Photo: John Flynn

“Today the plan was for myself or Nick Both to get into the breakaway and I managed to get into the breakaway, which was great.”

Steurs Pulls Back Time
Although the race was travelling through cattle country, the protagonists in the women’s race were “playing for sheep stations” today, to use the Australian vernacular.

Second placed Belgian Karen Steurs (Team Ride For The Stars) tried on several occasions to attack her rival Jo Bennett of the Merida Flight Centre Team and finally succeeded as Bennett felt the heat for the first time in this year’s Trophy.

“It was very hard in the heat,” a beaming Steurs said after getting the stage win and pulling back two minutes on G.C.

Karen Steurs tired but happy

Photo: John Flynn

“I tried two times to attack and then came back to the group.

“Then Christophe (Steurs husband and domestique) attacked and I got on his wheel and Jo behind me but Jo broke.”

An exhausted Bennett, who now leads the women’s event by just 1 minute and 1 second, admitted the stage was much harder than it looked on paper.

“From what the guys said from last year it was supposed to be an easier stage, but it was hard,” Bennett said.

“I really felt it today.”

There was no change to the general classification today as the Crocodile Trophy’s leaders saved their best efforts for tomorrow’s blisteringly hard stage to Mount Mulgrave.

VIG+ racing’s Ondrej Fojtik still leads the race from two of his teammates, Martin Horak and Tomas Trunschka, with the nearest threat coming from Belgian Nicolas Vermeulen who is more than eleven minutes behind on G.C. in fourth place.