Crash brings down 2018 National Champion on day two of the Lexus Of Blackburn Bay Crits, while Hosking and White win and grab yellow

A crash on the final lap of the women's Lexus of Blackburn Bay Crits has likely ended 2018 National Road Race Champion SHANNON MALSEED's summer campaign, after she was transported to hospital via ambulance. The Lexus team rider was involved in a crash with Brit MOLLY PATCH (Appselec) and EMMA CHILTON (Roxsolt Attaquer). Both of those riders were treated on site, and will be further assessed.

Malseed was conscious on the back straight, but in clear distress with medical diagnosis still underway at hospital to establish the full extent of her injuries - early reports indicator a suspected shoulder injury.

Stage 2 Results

Stage 2 Photos

A crash on the final lap of the women's Lexus of Blackburn Bay Crits has likely ended 2018 National Road Race Champion SHANNON MALSEED's summer campaign, after she was transported to hospital via ambulance. The Lexus team rider was involved in a crash with Brit MOLLY PATCH (Appselec) and EMMA CHILTON (Roxsolt Attaquer). Both of those riders were treated on site, and will be further assessed.

Malseed was conscious on the back straight, but in clear distress with medical diagnosis still underway at hospital to establish the full extent of her injuries - early reports indicator a suspected shoulder injury.

Team mate CHLOE HOSKING took out the stage but her thoughts were with the riders and her Lexus counterpart Malseed: 

She’s in the hospital, I don’t know about her injuries. I’m a bit worried for her, I don’t think it’s great.

Race Director JOHN TREVORROW:

I spoke with Shannon when I went into the hospital and she was sore but in good spirits, it appears she has damaged her shoulder and we are still waiting for a full medical report.

It is a tough sport bike racing but we hate to see an accident - she was in a lot of pain. She’s a tough cookie but it was upsetting, especially for Sarah Gigante because they’re close.


Earlier riders had assembled at Eastern Park in Geelong for Day Two, with the peloton facing blustery headwinds on the exposed parkland overlooking Corio Bay.

Malseed had been involved in many of the early race moves before the crash. It became a split race with 10 minutes to go, with seven riders off the front before CHLOE HOSKING (Lexus) took yellow, with RUBY ROSEMAN-GANNON (Appselec) and individual entrant MATILDA RAYNOLDS rounding out the podium.

Chloe Hosking:
How good is it, [Ruby is] so young and taking it to the old girls, so it will be really exciting tomorrow. I have a really strong team here to help me so it would be really nice to keep the yellow tomorrow but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lost it in Williamstown so I’m pretty mindful of that.

The Gatorade Sprint classification was held again by JESS ALLEN (Lexus) with a 10 point total, 7 points clear of her nearest rival.

The Men's race was delayed until 7pm and was shortened to a 45 minute event due to the Malseed crash. LUKE DURBRIDGE (Novotel-Mitchelton) was again powerful, splitting the race in the last three laps. The World Champion Team Pursuit team, riding as 'Lexus' showed exactly why they are the world record holders, reeling in the escapees to provide a bunch gallop at the end.

NICK WHITE (Team BridgeLane) surged to the lead right on the line, just ahead of Criterium National Champion BRENTON JONES (Novotel-Mitchelton) with JENSEN PLOWRIGHT (TeamBridgeLane) third. The result seeing a tight contest at the top of the men's General Classification.

Nick White:
It will definitely be a challenge tomorrow, by no respect am I going to think it’s going to be easy to hold onto this jersey but we’ll give it everything we’ve got and go down swinging. 
 
We’ve still got a pretty strong team here in Jensen [Plowright], he’s a classy sprinter in his own rights and to have him in front of me tomorrow will be a huge confidence booster. 
 
We’ve only got four guys but we’ve got four very strong guys and four very capable guys so I think we’ll definitely be able to put up a good fight and hopefully can hold onto the jersey.
 
It was tough, there was a lot of hanging around before the race due to the ambulances on course, give them the respect they deserve but there was definitely a bit of hanging around so the anticipation was building up and the nerves were building up. Being a shorter race it was raced a lot more aggressively so it was raced pretty hard.

The PSC Insurance Sprint Ace was maintained by Ben Hill (Team BridgeLane) with 10 points.