CCC Team (Australia) - Patrick Bevin continued his strong start to the season by sprinting to his first WorldTour stage win on stage two of the Santos Tour Down Under, which saw the New Zealander move into the race lead.

Bevin, who became the New Zealand national time trial champion two weeks ago, made the most of a chaotic and crash-marred finale to launch his sprint with perfect timing at 150 meters to go and deliver CCC Team’s first WorldTour win of the season.

With ten bonus seconds from his stage win, in addition to five bonus seconds from stage one, Bevin now leads the Santos Tour Down Under by five seconds over Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quick Step), and nine seconds over Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) with four stages remaining.

Quotes from the Finish Line - Paddy Bevin:

“It’s my first WorldTour win. It’s huge. WorldTour wins are so hard to come by. I wouldn’t have put money on it being a sprint like that. I’ve been working so hard on my time trialing to take my career that way. It’s amazing. In the last few years we haven’t had sprinters and then we were third, and close, yesterday and today to win it sets a precedent for this team. Like I said here yesterday when I was most aggressive rider, we are going to fight for everything we can get. This [CCC Team] is a revamped outfit with a totally different mindset, totally different goals, and we want to give it everything we have. I love the Tour Down Under. It’s always been a great race for me.”