Commonwealth Games: Bauer lauds NZ team for towering effort

Kiwi Jack Bauer, right, said he had to dig deep to claim silver behind Geraint Thomas, centre, but ahead of Scott Thwaites. Photo / Greg Bowker

Jack Bauer was able to forget his Tour de France pain with a little help from his friends.

A fortnight after the most frustrating of finishes on cycling's biggest stage, an element of redemption arrived at the Commonwealth Games.

For that, Bauer must thank the rest of the New Zealand team, crafted and instructed to support Bauer on a course that seemed suited for a breakaway specialist.

So it proved during the penultimate event of the Glasgow Games, with Bauer set up brilliantly by his fives teammates, particularly Greg Henderson and Shane Archbold.

Competing in his last Games, Henderson put aside personal goals to work towards a common goal, with the sprinter walking the talk after insisting he would ride for Bauer's cause.

The 37-year-old was the last of the New Zealand men standing when Bauer launched his decisive break, offering advice before the move and doing no work in the chasing group after the bust.

And it was a bust created by a severe stint on the front of the peloton by Shane Archbold. A gold-medallist already on the track, Archbold declined the opportunity to savour his success in favour of a punishing turn on a miserable Glasgow day.

He spent almost an entire loop of the 12-lap circuit at the front of the group of favourites, blowing up the field and laying the platform for Bauer, an effort Henderson raved about after the race.

"I said to Jack with about five [laps] to go, 'Mate, everyone's on the limit now. Let's get [Archbold] up here to just drill it for a lap'," Henderson said. "And [Archbold] did an amazing job. Everyone was just on the friggin' limit, then Jack just went over the top, and effectively that was the race."

Although Bauer was eventually pipped by an unstoppable Geraint Thomas, he acknowledged it was the work of his team that presented such a golden opportunity. He was hardly short of motivation, having agonisingly missed out on a stage win in last month's Tour, but Bauer's teammates provided plenty more in a race he compared to the toughest of them all.

"If you had asked me a week ago, I would have said [the Tour de France] was the deepest I've ever dug in my career," he said. "But today, there were moments today in that final 50k where I really had to repeat that effort.

"I had to give it all for that result today, but I was always going to. With the support of the five guys behind me I couldn't do anything else. I had to back it up and come away with a medal of some description.

"This is national pride, this is being part of the team - the Kiwi team - riding with the five boys out there. It's definitely one of the proudest moments of my life.

"To have them back me up and give all they had, especially Shane Archbold in the middle of the race there, I really can't thank them enough."