Bobridge strikes again in Japan

South Australia's Jack Bobridge notched up his second and the fourth stage win for Team AIS in the Tour of Japan sprinting home solo at the end of the 96km Izu stage in and around the Japan Cycle Sports Centre, home of the country's Keirin racing school.

Bobridge crossed the line in a time of 2hr45min12sec, two seconds clear of second placed Dmitriy Fofonov (KAZ) with another Kazakh rider Valentin Iglinskiy, arriving 50sec down in third place. Bobridge's team mate Michael Matthews was a further two seconds back in fourth place.

"I felt quite good today," said Bobridge. "The Kazakh (Fofonov)is definitely strong - a bit of an animal really - but I knew I couldbeat him in a sprint so I just had to stay with him to the finish."

Team Director Brian Stephens says Fofonov repeatedly tried to escape from Bobridge as the race headed for the finish.

"Coming down to the last couple of laps Fofonov tried to get rid of jack but Jack wasn't going to be got rid off," said Stephens.

Five hundred metres from home the 19 year old Australian launched his sprint on what was a solid uphill drag to the line. Fofonov couldn't match it and Bobridge added Stage 6 to his Stage 4 victory of Wednesday.

"Iwouldn't say I was feeling better and better but certainly I've beenable to recover and race well every day as the Tour's gone on," saidBobridge who has now moved into seventh overall and is the best placed of the Australians on the general classification.

The eight laps of a rollercoaster 12 kilometre course was animated from the gun with several attacks being launched before Bobridge joined a break that stuck. He then launched another attack and was followed by Croatian Matija Kvasina (Amica Chips - Knauf), the same rider who joined him in the lead on Stage 4. Several riders tried to bridge the gap to the lead pair but only Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Fofonov succeeded with the trio in front for most of the race.

Kvasina cemented his lead in the mountain classification before he was dropped by Bobridge and Fofonov.

"The main bunch was being controlled by the bunch being controlled by the Carmiooro - A Style team, looking after their race leader (Spaniard Sergio Bellon Pardilla)which worked in our favour," said Stephens. "Also because the Kazakh'shad a man up the road they didn't want to chase it back either."

The stage win has cheered up the Team AIS riders who were a little disappointed to see their GC aspirations dashed on yesterday's brutal mountain time trial stage on Mount Fuji. Matthews and Bobridge both lost around four minutes while Travis Meyer was close to five minutes off the pace of stage winner Pardilla.

"Yesterdaywas a bit of a shock to the system and we got bit of a hiding but Brian(Stephens) said we had to refocus and go for the stage win and we'vecome up with that today," saidBobridge. "Now we focus on doing it again tomorrow with Leigh (Howard)."

19year old Howard has already claimed two stage wins for the team andwith Sunday's final stage in Tokyo expected to be a bunch sprint finishthe team will be working to set him up for a third one.

Overall Team AIS has three riders sitting in the top ten with Bobridge seventat 4min46sec, Matthews ninth at 5min23sec and Travis Meyer, who todaytook a tumble while in an early break but recovered to finish 13th on the stage, ranked 10th at 7min29sec.

Howard is ranked second on the points classification on 40 points, nine behind leader Valentin Iglinskiy (KAZ) with Matthews third on 36 points and Bobridgefourth on 30 points. Whilst there are enough points on offer tomorrowfor Howard to reclaim the points jersey lead the team is well awareIglinskiy will be shadowing him and needs only to place well on the intermediate sprints and at the finish to retain his lead.

Theconsistent performance of the young Australian line up has seen themmove into second on the teams classification, 6min02sec behind theKazakhstan National Team.

Also on today's stage Meyer finished 13th and Adam Semple , who was in the very first attack of the day also made the top 20 with his 19th place finish.