Haas has it all ahead of him now

Nathan Haas winner ©Graham Watson

Oct 17th, 11. Nathan Haas from Continental team Genesys Wealth Advisers beat top pro-tour team riders to take the Jayco Herald Sun Tour title, and a few other jerseys too. 

He finished 3rd in the opening stage, and said he was eyeing up the U23 Classification. After yesterday's final stage he won that jersey, and the overall tour plus the sprint jersey. His team also won the team's classification!

This is Haas' fourth tour win this season, but the biggest by a long, long way.

"It was a dream, I never dreamt of," he Haas.

The 22-year-old who was born in Queensland, lives in the ACT, studies in Sydney and rides for a Tasmanian team, began the fifth and final stage with a comfortable ten second buffer - but it was over a formidable adversary in the form of Garmin-Cervelo's Australian road race champion and world track 4000m record holder, Jack Bobridge.

Credentials mean nothing on the road though, and a gracious Bobridge very honourably conceded the Tour to Haas mid-stage. 

"We did everything we could to put him under pressure, but he just put pressure back on us," Bobridge said.

The honour roll for the Jayco Herald Sun Tour shows how big this win is; Bradley Wiggins won last year, Stuart O'Grady before him and Simon Gerrans has won twice.

Understandably after such a big win Haas can't help but think of his future.

"Everything keeps moving forward and I really can't dictate my fate at the moment, it just seems to be happening. A result like this pushes me closer to making it to the WorldTour but I am in no rush to be in any particular spot in my career right now."

The 15 x 4.1km circuit stage was won by Skil Shimano's Marcel Kittel, his 2nd stage win of the tour.

"To win two stages at the end of the year is very nice but I thank my team for that," Kittel said. "I think I always had a good race program with good breaks. The year was perfect for me and it will be difficult to repeat it in the future."

NZ's PureBlack Racing finished the tour with three riders - Tim Gudsell (9th overall), Shem Rodger and Michael Northey. 

Jayco Herald Sun Tour results ...