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Friday, May 23, 2014

Jack Haig is primed for a European road near you

After a well deserved spring break, Jack Haig is back at it with Avanti Racing on the Australian NRS circuit and has returned to his winning ways already.

The overall winner of the NRS last year in his first full year dedicated to the road, Haig was playing a good teammate to Mark O'Brien and Joe Cooper in the Battle on the Border last week. O'Brien won the opening stage on Mount Warning in New South Wales with Haig in 2nd and teammate Cooper in 3rd. Cooper won the stage 3 TT which flipped the overall GC standings for Avanti with the New Zealander winning the overall, Haig in 2nd and O'Brien in 3rd.

Still just 20 years old, Haig is currently getting his back scratched for him at the Tour of Toowoomba. After teammate Neil van der Ploeg took out the first stage sprint, it was Haig's turn on the stage to the Bunya Mountains. Haig, O'Brien and Cooper got into the winning breakaway with search2retain's Brendan Canty and the quartet were off with 10 km to go.

Haig, at least according to multiple twitter reports, was doing the majority of the work on the front of the finishing climb while the others were just holding on at that point. Haig was able to distance his companions in the final stretch to take the queen stage win by 8 seconds over Canty and Cooper. Haig just has 3 more stages to go and the worst is now over with and I would be surprised to see a non-Avanti rider steal this race.

Haig will be coming over to Europe soon with the Australian National Team to get in some U23 racing and perhaps some MTB events at the Commonwealth Games, the latter of which is in doubt because of how well he is going on the road. With Rob Power and Haig for a potential duo in the Tour de l'Avenir...well I would be taking a big gulp and training double if I was going up against them.




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