AUSTRALIAN cycling history has been made at the Giro D'Italia with Western Australian Jai Hindley becoming just the second Australian to win one of the sport's grand tours.
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And Western District star Lucas Hamilton and his BikeExchange team have finished the event with some outstanding results.
While all the plaudits will rightly go to Hindley, who held off Colombian Richard Carapaz to claim the overall pink jersey in the final stage, a 17km time trial. Hamilton can be well pleased with his 13th position overall, leading the BikeExchange team after sacrificing his own race early on to assist Brit Simon Yates.
Hamilton showed his climbing prowess in his role as domestique to Yates. Yates would win two stages, a time trial win on stage two and a spectacular solo effort on stage 14, but was unable to fight for the overall classification after one bad day in the mountains.
On the final stage, Hamilton finished 25th, 1 minute and 52 seconds behind teammate - and Italian time trial champion - Matteo Sobrero, who scored an impressive win on home soil.
Australian Michael Hepburn gave the squad a strong start as he set the provisional fastest time over the 17.4km course, and the 30-year-old held on for an impressive top-10 finish on the stage with ninth place on the day.
Should his recovery be fine, Hamilton should be in line for a role in the Tour De France which is scheduled to start on June 26.
BikeExchange head sport director Matt White told the BikeExchange website it was a special day for the team and for Australian cycling.
"To finish off with Matteo taking his first WorldTour win, at home, as the Italian time trial champion is the icing on what has been a really up and down month," White said.
"Everyone's worked really hard and I'm really proud of the boys and how they rode for the entire race. It's been a rollercoaster month for us.
"We came here obviously with very big ambitions to try and win the Giro, which had to change when Simon's injury got too much.
"We changed our tack and walked away with two more stage wins after Simon's brilliant time trial in Budapest."
General manager Brent Copeland said it was a good ending to a tough event.
"To win both time trials at a grand tour like this really says something about the performance of the team and the work that has been done and invested," he said.
"If we look at the evaluation of the whole race, we obviously didn't reach our goal that we came here for, which was for the overall podium position or the pink jersey, which was the ultimate goal. But that's sport, that's the way things go and that's what makes sport exciting."
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