2017 Herald Sun Tour


The 2017 Jayco Herald Sun Tour was a road cycling stage race that took place in Victoria, Australia, between 1 and 5 February 2017. The race was rated as a 2.1 event as part of the 2017 UCI Oceania Tour. The race included five stages: the first was a prologue individual time trial stage, with the remaining four stages being road stages. The champion of the 2016 Herald Sun Tour, Chris Froome attempted to defend his title.
The race was won by Damien Howson of, who took his first professional victories at the race; having won the race's queen stage to Falls Creek, Howson was able to maintain a 38-second race lead for the remainder of the Tour. The remaining podium places were taken by those that finished immediately behind Howson at Falls Creek; Jai Hindley finished second for an Australian select team, and took out the white jersey for the young rider classification, while a further 15 seconds in arrears, Kenny Elissonde took third place for.
Just as he did in the 2016 edition of the race, 's Ben Hill won a jersey, this time taking the polka dot jersey as winner of the mountains classification, while Jacob Kauffmann took the green jersey as winner of the sprints classification for the. The teams classification was won by, having taking three of the five stage victories through Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard and Danny van Poppel.

Teams

Fifteen teams were invited to take part in the race. These included two UCI WorldTeams, four UCI Professional Continental teams, seven UCI Continental teams and two national teams.

Route

The race route was released on 1 December 2016, with a route described by race director, and former three-time race winner, John Trevorrow as the "toughest course in recent history".

Stages

Prologue

;1 February 2017 — Melbourne,, individual time trial

Stage 1

;2 February 2017 — Wangaratta to Falls Creek,

Stage 2

;3 February 2017 — Mount Beauty to Beechworth,

Stage 3

;4 February 2017 — Benalla to Mitchelton Winery, Nagambie,

Stage 4

;5 February 2017 — Kinglake to Kinglake,

Classification leadership table