Giacoppo finished over the top of one of the world’s fastest sprinters, Mark Renshaw, in the elite men’s criterium at the Mars Cycling Australia Road National Championships.

Steele Von Hoff completed another phenomenal moment for domestic team Genesys Wealth Advisers by finishing third on day one of the titles.

Von Hoff is riding for the Chipotle development team this year, but last night was in the familiar orange strip in which he starred in 2011 to make it an all too familiar podium, with Genesys having dominated the Australian road scene over the past two years.

Giacoppo finished second in the criterium championship on the same Sturt Street circuit last year, but his teammates ensured there was no way he was going to be denied gold for a second year in a row.

Ballarat’s Pat Shaw put in a massive ride to effort to be in a series of breakaways for most of the last 16 kilometres of the 44km event to ensure no one was able to relax.

Then Von Hoff provided a key lead out for Giacoppo in the last 500m when firstly Robbie McEwen and then Renshaw made their dashes for glory.

Giacoppo won the third round of the Bay Criterium Series in Geelong on Tuesday in a career high.

However, he not surprisingly had no hesitation in putting the national title way ahead of that achievement.

He had only praise for every member of the Genesys team.

Giacoppo described Shaw as a “super domestique”.

Shaw was one of the criterium’s most aggressive riders, showing his face on the front several times early before being part of a three-man breakaway with late in the race put eight seconds on the bunch and then another which opened up a 12-second gap before being caught for the last time with three laps (3.3km) to go.

An estimated 6000 people lined Sturt Street for the elite men’s criterium. Championships director John Craven was ecstatic with the turn out.

The championships continue with the elite and under-23 women’s road race at Buninyong tomorrow and men’s road race on Sunday.

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