Last year's winner Hayden Roulston took over the Tour of Southland cycling race leader's yellow jersey after the first of two stages yesterday before comfortably holding it through the afternoon stage.
Timaru veteran Reon Park went into the 104.2km morning stage from Invercargill to Tuatapere with a lead
of 22 seconds over Roulston, but he missed the vital break in the stage and dropped to sixth place, nearly three minutes down on the new leader.
Park's Colour Plus teammate Marc Ryan sprinted clear of a five-man bunch to win the fourth stage, a repeat of his win two years ago, but Roulston finished three places behind him and assumed the overall lead.
Roulston was happy to take over the yellow jersey.
"It's always good to be the leader of the tour. It gives my team a job to do and in many respects it's a bit easier," he said.
With only 29sec separating Roulston and Ryan on general classification, the race is now a battle between the pair and their respective teams.
"Marc is a really close friend of mine so I've got a lot of respect for him as a rider and probably likewise he has for me," Roulston said. "He's a good friend but yes, it's going to be a grudge match."
The 88.3km afternoon fifth stage from Tuatapere to Winton did not change the overall standings, although Jeremy Vennell gained some compensation for missing out on a stage win on Tuesday when he crossed the line first.
"It makes it all worth while. I was wondering what I was doing thrashing myself to stay with those guys. I was just hoping that I had the legs to do it in the end," Vennell said.
Another rider happy yesterday was Jeremy Yates. The Subway team rider dropped a lot of time in Monday's hill climb finish at Bluff but he made it into an early break in the afternoon stage yesterday and picked up enough points on the climbs to take over the king of the mountain lead.
The riders today face a 133km stage from Lumsden to the Crown Range, near Queenstown.
- NZPA
