Southland riders make impression in Tour of Southland
The riders in the 63rd SBS Bank Tour of Southland certainly gave outgoing race director Bruce Ross a fitting send off last week.
‘Boss’ Ross will officially sign off from Cycling Southland in March, but last week was his final lap of the south in charge, with Sally Marr replacing him for the 64th edition next November.
Ross, who was race director for 35 years and has an association with the event stretching back half a century, loved the racing which was produced in Thursday’s stage five from Invercargill to Gore.
That was the stage where Placemakers tore the race apart with an audacious move which saw defending champion Michael Vink go from a distant third to an almost impregnable lead, eventually going onto be the first rider in over a decade to win New Zealand’s most prestigious bike race back-to-back.
It was a breathtaking piece of team riding, Vink winning the title without a stage victory, or even finishing in the top two on either the Coronet Peak or Bluff Hill climbs.
It was a great race for Southland riders too.
Photo: Hamish Keast and Josh Haggerty, left, played a big role in helping Michael Vink defend his title. Pic: Nathan Burdon
With a stronger team around him, Corbin Strong could well have won this year’s Tour of Southland and finally taken the heat off Doug Bath, who remains the last local to lift the trophy a quarter of a century ago.
In his first year out of school, and after a top 10 finish last year, what the 19-year-old produced last week was exceptional.
If we ignore the Gore stage for a second, his worst result in the road stages was fourth in a bunch sprint in Lumsden at the end of stage one.
Photo: Invercargill policeman Blake Tait-Jones. Pic: Nathan Burdon
He was second to his New Zealand endurance track teammate Campbell Stewart in Te Anau in the next day’s sprint, third on the Coronet Peak climb on Wednesday and second across the line atop Bluff Hill, before finishing third in the final sprint stage on Saturday.
With those results, it’s seems unfair that he would walk away from his second tour without at least the under 23 jersey, but a number of factors saw his challenge stall on the way to Gore.
Strong has such a huge career ahead of him that there’s a chance we might not see him again at the Tour of Southland, or at least for a few years.
He has every chance of forcing his way into the reckoning for the New Zealand track squad for the Tokyo Olympics next year and has signed with Dutch continental team SEG Racing, considered one of the best development teams in the world.
Tom Sexton, who should also be on the plane to Tokyo, showed his class on the way to Bluff, all but securing the Sprint Ace jersey in one stage.
Blake Tait-Jones finished a creditable 26th, despite earlier this year taking a break from cycling to graduate from Police College.
Combining cycling training with shift work as a police officer in Invercargill had been a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.
“I’ve worked around it, having shift work, working all hours of the day has made it quite challenging, but I’ve had a great support network around me and I’ve just made it work,” he said before the start of the tour.
“(As a policeman) I’ve seen Invercargill with different eyes now, but it’s been really good. It’s like they say, no two days are the same and there’s never a dull moment. I’m learning every day and loving it.”
Photo: Travis Kane completed his 20th consecutive Tour of Southland. Pic: Nathan Burdon
Hamish Keast, in just his second tour, had the pressure of riding for the defending champion. Like his Placemakers teammates, Keast had to bury himself against the challenge from Kia Motors-Ascot Park Hotel and the outstanding Mexican climber Eder Frayre and he emerged from the tour with plenty of credit.
Samuel Miller was 43rd overall, Josh Haggerty 75th, while, in his 20th consecutive tour, Travis Kane was 81st. La’chlan Robertson completed a huge few weeks which included the Yunca Junior Tour of Southland and Tour of New Caledonia. It was great to see Neil Cleghorn finish in 88th after some misfortune in his comeback tour last year.
Hayden Rankin and David McCormick deserve plenty of credit for making it to the finish line in Gala St, a win for all those weekend warriors who dream of one day crossing New Zealand’s best bike race off their bucket list.
