Sport & Motorsport
History has repeated on the shores of Lake Te Anau as Tauranga’s Kiaan Watts galloped his way to a bunch sprint victory on day three of the SBS Bank Tour of Southland.
Riding in his eighth edition of the Southland tour, the PowerNet rider defended the stage title he won in January’s rescheduled race, continuing a good form line which included a third place finish in Monday’s street race.
Southlander Jeremy Presbury (Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project) was second on the stage, time bonuses helping him rein in Cameron Jones and claim the general classification lead by just 1sec.
Presbury, 31, once shifted from Invercargill to Cambridge to chase Olympic glory as a track sprinter.
More than a decade on he finds himself not just a stage winner, but also wearing the tour leader’s livery in the road event every young Southland cyclist grows up dreaming about.
“It’s even more special,” Presbury said of the orange jersey.
“The stage yesterday was incredible, and I probably didn’t expect this today either, but thankfully I’ve got an absolute weapon of a bunch of lads who are helping support me. They did a bloody good job of helping me get into this jersey.
“Coming into a sprint finish like that, we’ve pretty much been doing that on a daily basis for the past couple of months in the States, doing criteriums. We had a good lead out - we didn’t quite execute how we wanted to - but it was still really, really good and full credit to the boys, they nailed it.”
Watts, who rides professionally in Europe, was relieved to deliver the stage win for his team after some solid preparation earlier in the day.
“It’s really nice to go back-to-back here. I love this stage, I think there were a few tired legs after Blackmount and we managed to find ourselves in a good group that we were happy with. The team rode awesome to keep us away. I was stoked and relieved to finish it off.
“By the time we hit the slopes of Blackmount there were already some tired bodies and some of the boys were keen to light it up. Ollie (Jones) had a good crack over there and we let him have his fun and then it all came back together at the front. I didn’t realise how many tired guys there were out there, I was just keen to finish it off and repay the boys’ support.”
With little wind, but nagged by persistent drizzle, the peloton covered the first rolling 100km of the 158km stage from Riverton to Te Anau in just two hours. Repeated breaks were defused before they could make an impact, but then Joshua Cavanagh (Quality Foods Southland/Gough Brothers), Corban Nicol (iBuilt) and Swiss rider Christoph Janssen (Open Country TES) rode away.
They managed to take enough time to briefly make Cavanagh the leader on the road, and Janssen would later be rewarded with Most Combative honours.
The Blackmount hillclimb helped to simultaneously bring the race together and break it up, with a big lead group jostling for the bunch sprint into Te Anau.
Australian Reuben Page-Brown (Team Brennan) is now third behind Presbury and Jones and is the leading under 23 rider. Beginning the stage tied on time, Ben Dyball (Macaulay-Ford/GoodTech) has now opened up a handy lead on Glenn Haden (Advanced Personnel) in the over 35 classification.
George Jackson’s Herculean efforts over the past two days have been rewarded with the Sprint Ace jersey, while Presbury leads the King of the Mountains standings and their Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project team leads the Teams classification.
The focus now shifts to tomorrow’s 108km stage from Mossburn to the Remarkables, the imposing curtain of rock which is the only overhang the peloton are interested in this week.
The top 36 riders are all within 90sec of the lead, promising a significant shake up of the general classification after the Queen Stage.
Three-time champion Josh Burnett has dominated this stage, winning it three times in the past five editions.
However, with the Southland professional in a support van this year, it will be fascinating to see which team can deliver their strongest climber to the base of the arduous 6km climb in the best position.