Southlander wins stage

Southlander Matt Zenovich has produced a powerful performance to become the first local to win a stage of the Tour of Southland since he did it in 2013.

The hometown hero, riding for Placemakers, won the first stage of the Tour of Southland – the 170km stretch from Invercargill to Lumsden – yesterday.

It’s the first time a Southlander has won a stage in New Zealand’s most prestigious bike race since Zenovich won in Te Anau in 2013, and the first time a Southlander has worn yellow since Cam Karwowski the same year.

It was a deserved victory after Zenovich had worked hard to drive the break and to put himself into a position to contest the final furious sprint.

‘‘At the start the team plan was just to relax because this is the longest stage of the tour and there’s a lot of long days to come, but me being me, I got a little bit excited and got into a breakaway about 50km in,’’ Zenovich said.

‘‘I seized my opportunity with about 10km to go, didn’t get much help into the finish and I don’t have any idea how I managed to finish it off, but I’m happy about it.’’

A Southlander hasn’t won the tour since Doug Bath managed the feat in 1994, while Zenovich’s stage win is just the second by a local since 2003.

Zenovich was part of a four-man breakaway which had grown to a dozen by Nightcaps and included fellow Southlanders Corbin Strong and Josh Haggerty, with a lead approaching six minutes.

Efforts by the peloton to shut down the attack were hampered when they took a wrong turn after Nightcaps.

Oliver Martin was second on the stage, with United States rider Kevin Girkins (Kia Motors-ascot Park Hotel) third and winner of the most combative honours, with Ethan Batt (WPC Southjoyride Apparel) leading the king of the mountain standings.

Zenovich holds a slim 6sec lead over Martin, with Girkins 22sec in arrears.

Ollie Jones (Powernet) leads the sprint ace standings, with team-mate Connor Brown the leading under-23 rider and Paul Odlin the best of the-over 35 riders.

WPC South-joyride Apparel leads the teams classification.

Today’s stage takes the riders 150km from Riverton along the southern coast, and takes in the Blackmount hill climb before finishing on the Te Anau lakefront about 2pm.