The rising stars Sophie Marr and Jack Ward have hit their ticket for the World Cycling tour with exciting victories in the inaugural Super League Product.
The Super League Product replaced the National Road series with a series of compressed events of six events that took place for three months.
The competition had four races on stage: the SA Kick IT, Spirit of Tasmania Cycling Tour, The Harbor City GP and The Season Finale Q Tour, and two one -day classics, Grafton A Inverell Classic and Melbourne to Warrnambool.
The winners of the U-23 classification were scheduled to win contracts with the World Tour teams of Green Edge Cycling, the Jayco Alula and Liv Jayco Alula team.
And, in a great boost to the incipient competition, both the male and female events were reduced to the final event, with Marr as Ward sealing their places in the world tour in the final rise of the entire series.
Sophie Marr claimed her fifth victory in the Super League of Product on Saturday. (Supplied: Superleague Product/with Chronis)
However, with so many impressive performances, sport fans may be sure that they will not be the only runners who move to Europe in the near future.
The women’s series saw Marr, 20, sealing the general victory of the series on the second day of the Q tour, celebrating claiming the third stage around Lakeside Raceway and ensuring that he will join the LIV Development team of Liv Alula Jayco in Europe for the 2026 season.
However, the brutal gradient of 18 percent on the Campbell pocket road to the finish line in the final stage of Sunday still provided an impressive sting in the tail, a dramatic climb that left almost all the riders panting by air and extended on the ground.
“I am so excited. I am lost by the words, really,, Marr said at the end of the stage.
“Everyone said: ‘You have this … the pen is in your hand.’ I thought, ‘Boys, don’t talk too soon,’ obviously, this last stage is a real fight.”
Sophie Marr sold out after the final stage of the Q tour. (Supplied: Superleague Product/with Chronis)
Marr finished sixth in that final stage of 90.3 km, but had won five of the 15 stages that began during the season, including the general classification on the Tasmania tour.
His closest rival, Talia Appleton won the stage of lung shelf with a brutal final effort, although he finally did not reach the title.
Appleton had made waves at the beginning of the year by rejecting the opportunity to travel on the tour of the ARA Australia team to maximize its chances of winning that very sought after contract.
Initially it was worth it, with the 19 -year -old climber winning the opening stage of all the competition, a counterreloj by Willunga Hill, to take the general classification in the SA Kick It Round and an early advantage in the general classification.
However, his Praties cycling teammate, Marr, reviewed it with a series of impressive Sprint victories and, when Appleton finished a disappointing ninth in Joyner’s time trial on Saturday, the General Prize was out of reach.
“I think I can be proud of how I ran this series,” said Appleton.
Talia Appleton was too strong in the final climb, reserving her product season with victories on stage. (Supplied: Superleague Product/with Chronis)
“I wanted to end an explosion, so [I’m] Really proud to have been able to achieve it.
“I was obviously little disappointed [not to win overall].
“I was pointing to the general series, but I finished with a stop. It’s really satisfactory.”
In the male race, Ward was pushed throughout Zac’s marriage, which culminated in an exciting confrontation of the final stage, winner, all on the track of 18 percent of Campbell’s Pocket Road.
In the male event, the two key protagonists, Ward (Team Brennan P/B TP32) and marriage (Butterfields Ziptrak Racing) had become teenagers throughout the series, with this final not different stage.
As the world of cycling marveled at one of the great races of all time in Milan-Sanmo the previous day, when Mathieu van der Poel, Filippo Ganna and Tadej Pugačar were hammered and tinks with each other in the most grandeur of sport, the two young Australians everything that their world counterpart could be seen in terms of drama in the final stage of 111.7km sport.
As the race exploded on the final slope, Ward and marriage, the two outstanding pilots of the Super League Product, went out to glory.
Jack Ward (on the right) led Zac’s marriage little throughout an anxious fighting series. (Supplied: Superleague Product/with Chronis)
In the end, it was Ward who claimed the stage, the Crown of the Super League and the six -month Stagiaire, or apprentice, hired Jayco Alula, while the marriage had to settle for the general classification crown of the Tour of the Q and the second place in general.
“It was quite special,” Ward said after the “really hard” final ascent, claiming his second victory of the series.
“It is a great opportunity they have [Jayco AlUla] provided.
“They have done much for Australian cycling. It is quite special.”
The marriage, which set up on the tour under the ARA Australia team and finished second in the classification of the young rider, was full of praise for Ward.
“Jack Ward is an incredible cyclist. Congratulations to him,” he said.
“We would have liked to get the victory on the day, but he was too strong.”
Jack Ward was always just one step, or second, ahead of Zac’s marriage. (Supplied: Superleague Product/with Chronis)
However, once the dust sits, the young man in southern Australia can look back in a series in which he fell on the wrong side of some desperately close calls.
The marriage had won only one stage of the series, but ended on the podium the six times impressive, and ended only a second behind Ward in the general classification on the Tasmania tour in February.
He also finished second in Grafton to Invelll Race, an event in which Ward competed in the National Mountain Bicycle Championship in Australia.
Tristan Saunders de Team Brennan helped his teammate absent on that occasion when beating marriage in a two UPS sprint that, given the tight, was crucial to win the contract.
“We enter with a plan at the beginning of the series and we have done it perfectly,” Saunders said.
“The boys have been all series so good. It has been very good to be part.”
