Tour Down Under Stage 4: Steele Von Hoff wins in crashed-marred finale (+ video)

Steele Von Hoff, who will be riding this year for British UCI Continental outfit NFTO, has taken the biggest win of his career, winning Stage 4 of UCI WorldTour race, the Santos Tour Down Under, in Mount Barker today.

The 27-year-old, who earlier this month became Australian national circuit race champion, is riding the event as part of the UniSA-Australia composite team, alongside Jack Bobridge who won Tuesday’s opening stage.

Released by Garmin-Sharp at the end of last season following two years with Jonathan Vaughters’ outfit, Von Hoff beat Orica-GreenEdge’s Daryl Impey into second place today, with Drapac’s Wouter Wippert third.

Behind them, most of the field was held up by a spectacular crash in the finishing straight caused by an FDJ.fr rider hitting the deck, with a number of riders taken to hospital with injuries including road rash.

Overall standings remain unaltered since the crash took place in the final 3 kilometres, meaning they were given the same time as the stage winner.

Following his win, Von Hoff said: “Jack Bobridge was looking after me. He was telling me 'be patient, be patient'. I trusted him and he delivered me where I had to be.

“He told me to mark [Etixx] Quick Step because [Mark] Renshaw was there and I managed to find my way to victory.”

Von Hoff added: “My goal is to get back into the World Tour. The merger between Cannondale and Garmin left me behind this time but this win today will help me to go back to the highest level.”

Ahead of tomorrow’s queen stage to Old Willunga Hill, the penultimate of the race, Rohan Dennis retains the race lead from BMC Racing team mate Cadel Evans who is riding the final WorldTour race of his career.