CYCLING: Vennell shows true grit

ANENDRA SINGH
Hawke's Bay professional rider Jeremy Vennell has been keeping a low profile but you wouldn't guess that judging by his general classification position in the Tour of Southland.
The Belgium-based cyclist slipped from third position to sixth yesterday after the 133.9km stage six, from Lumsden to Crown Range, near Queenstown. Gordon McCauley (Trek/Zookeepers Cafe) took the stage in 2hr 23min 51sec.
What makes 25-year-old Vennell's feat incredible is that he has been battling a glandular condition since last month.
"I was fainting the week before the Tour. I had had a lot of antibiotics so I'd sit on the roadside until the dizzy spells went away," the Hastings rider told SportToday from Queenstown last night.
Vennell became ill last month but he raced in the Sun Tour in Melbourne. His condition deteriorated on returning home.
"I would have preferred not to come down (to Southland) but I'm doing much better than I thought I would be doing.
"I'm not too worried about slipping down the general classification. If I could sneak away to win a stage then it would be just awesome but I have to be realistic with my condition," said the DFL cyclingnews.com rider, who is grinding it out in the Southland Tour for the Calder Stewart team.
Calder Stewart, who have opened a 6min 52sec lead on Rabobank in the teams classification, sewed up the green jersey after Karl Murray amassed 113 points over nearest rival Curtis Gunn (Now) on 34 points.
The team maintained their lead thanks to Kristian House finishing 32 seconds behind McCauley in second place yesterday.
The illness meant Vennell's loyalty was put to the test after he had promised Calder Stewart's Brendan Monaghan and co-sponsor Pink Batts' Blair Sutherland he would compete in New Zealand's premier cycling event.
"I have a great relationship with Brendan and Blair. These guys are passionate about racing in the Tour and they have been phoning me up twice a week to see how I'm going, so it's pretty hard to say no to them," he said.
The weather had also been testing and the 15-bike pile-up and crashes on Wednesday were fresh in Vennell's mind.
"Yesterday I saw Robin Reid (Rotorua) go over his handlebar after the front wheel of his bike came off. He was knocked out for a good 10 minutes and they took him off to hospital," said Vennell, who was greeted with a layer of snow yesterday morning but was relieved when blue skies warmed things up.
"Riders started taking their clothes off one hour into the race but it was still cold. You can't eat while riding because you can't feel your fingers," said Vennell, who described his energy food bar as "gooey paste but tasting better than toothpaste gel".
This morning he was expecting wind, cold and rain in the second-longest 163.6km seventh stage from Winton to Te Anau.
* Results - page 13