Soiled Warrny: Raynolds wins tight battle with Sherwell, solo sortie pays off for Cutler

It was a protracted solo effort for males’s Soiled Warrny victor Tim Cutler, whereas within the girls’s race, it was a battle until the tip for Matilda Raynolds, who gapped final yr’s winner Courtney Sherwell on the run into the road of the 246km Australian gravel occasion.

The pair had additionally gone toe to toe on the Gravelista World Sequence occasion in Beechworth, simply two weeks in the past, however this time the order of the highest two steps within the girls’s class was reversed. That gave Raynolds a Soiled Warrny title so as to add to her two victories on the highway race which impressed the gravel occasion, the long-running Melbourne to Warrnambool.

“There may be simply one thing concerning the Warrny,” mentioned Raynolds in an interview straight after the end line, shared on the race’s Instagram web page. “I needed this one as a result of I’ve obtained a little bit of historical past right here, I gained’t swear as a result of I can see youngsters …nevertheless it was very difficult,” she mentioned in a tone that clearly indicated that the diploma of problem couldn’t be conveyed by a cautious, measured description. 

Raynolds took 8:41:24 to finish the race from Geelong to Warrnambool, which included over 3,000m of elevation acquire. Sherwell was simply 4 seconds behind when she crossed the grassed end line, whereas in third it was Movistar rider Sarah Gigante, who was greater than 25 minutes again.

Within the males’s race, there was no ready round for Cutler – who got here to note when he made his power clear together with his efforts within the break on the Melbourne to Warrnambool in 2022. Cutler leapt out the entrance on the very begin of the race, rapidly pulling out a stable hole and by no means relenting. 

“I used to be simply on the market having a go and it simply in some way paid off, unbelievable,” mentioned Cutler, who expressed his disbelief after the road.

The 28-year-old crossed the road in 7:49:26, with the ever-competitive Mark O’Brien practically 5 minutes again in second whereas Hayden Jarvis claimed the ultimate spot on the rostrum, ending simply over 9 minutes again from Cutler. Final yr’s winner Brendan Johnston came to visit the road in sixth, whereas anticipated challenger Connor Sens had an unrelenting stream of punctures which put the Australian champion out of the working. 

FDJ-Suez rider Grace Brown claimed the 140km girls’s occasion from Forrest to Warrnambool whereas Jack Aitken gained the lads’s class in that distance.

It was the second version of the Soiled Warrny, which is run in south-west Victoria on 85% gravel roads and. with its tough surfaces because it weaves by means of small regional places, harks again to the historical past of the long-running highway race which first ran in 1895.