Sensational ride sees Cooper in yellow jersey
Joe Cooper will look back on stage four of the New Zealand Cycle Classic with fondness for years to comes.
That was because the 31-yearold Wellingtonian put in a stellar ride to snatch the leader’s yellow jersey from New Zealand National Team rider James Oram.
Coming into yesterday’s 142.5-kilometre ’Five Towns’ stage he was exactly one minute down on Oram in 10th, but got into a nine-man break with about 60 kilometres to go which stayed away as he rode into yellow.
‘‘We had a lot of plans involving every different person, it just happened to be that I rolled into the right move and had [IsoWhey Sports SwissWellness team-mate] Neil van der Ploeg along for the ride with me.
‘‘With 60km to go, you never really think you’re going to make a minute and then hold it against a whole team defending yellow, which is pretty motivating.
‘‘For that plan to actually stick and to ride into yellow from how far down I was, it’s one of those moments that you’ll never forget.’’
As good as Cooper’s ride was, the New Zealand team also played a significant role in ceding yellow.
Eventual stage winner Jonathan Mould (JLT Condor) was up the road with three other riders when his team-mate Robert McCarty, Cooper, van der Ploeg, Hamish Bond (Blindz Direct), and New Zealand’s Luke Mudgway came across to them.
That left Oram with only Hayden McCormick for support, with Mudgway only coming back to help them with 35km to go at the bottom of the Millers Road climb.
‘‘It was a bit of an amateur mistake,’’ a clearly disappointed Oram said at the post-race presentation, where he collected the King of the Mountain jersey which he will keep with no climbs on Thursday’s final stage.
‘‘We didn’t have enough boys on the front when that move went. We had Luke across in it sitting on and waiting for us to come across. It was really just Hayden and myself, a lot of the other teams really stuffed up there not helping us out. It’s a bit confusing, I was wondering why they didn’t help us out, I guess that’s just racing at this level.’’
Unfortunately for Oram, the field had been devastated by a combination of a fast pace and crosswinds by that point - 62 of the 90 riders finished more than 19 minutes behind the winner.
Oram’s group, which was second on the road, had just 15 riders in it, with only a handful of other riders without team-mates up the road who could have helped out. By the time Mudgway came back it was too late to catch the strong lead group.
At the front of the race, Bond did some work early before being told by his team to sit up. When it became clear the break wouldn’t be caught, he made a series of attacks, which Cooper was able to cover.
Cooper, who taken some big turns on the front, somehow found the energy to shoot clear with 5km to go as Mould and Jordan Kerby hung onto his wheel. They stayed there until 500m to go, when both sprinted past Cooper and Mould proved the stronger over the closing stages to take the win.
It was an incredible performance from the Welshman, who battled the windy conditions on his own in a solo break for 25km early in the stage as he claimed the most aggressive rider of the stage.
‘‘When he hit out with 5km to go me and Kerby went with him and it was pretty much just a smash-fest all the way to the line,’’ Mould said.
‘‘I’d gone so deep to hang onto him and he was shouting out to do a turn, but I couldn’t get much more out. He might of thought I could, I got it all out in the sprint, but that was after the 4km that I’d been hanging onto him.
‘‘He deserves the yellow jersey, he rode in the wind like everyone else today and had a good team behind him.’’
Oram eventually finished one minute, 37 seconds behind Cooper, with under-23 leader Logan Griffin (Oliver’s Real Food), who was in the break, jumping above Oram into second by one second. Mould is a further second back from Oram in fourth.
JLT Condor will go for their third stage win on the final stage in Masterton on Thursday, which will feature 12 laps of a 10km circuit, although Cooper said he wasn’t ‘‘counting my chickens before they hatch’’ when it came to winning the tour.
You would not have wanted your grandmother to hear what was said to Hamish Bond on stage four of the New Zealand Cycle Classic.
The two-time Olympic gold medallist rower found himself in a nineman breakaway for the second half of the 142.5-kilometre Five Towns stage yesterday.
Initially, perhaps somewhat naively, he took turns on the front with a strong wind blowing.
Soon his Blindz Direct team car came up to him with some instructions, which probably went something like sit up and wait for team-mate Michael Torckler, who was higher up than him in the general classification, but behind him on the road.
So he sat up and proceeded to get an earful from a few of the riders in the break. He said that didn’t really bother him and their intention may have just been to try and unnerve him.
‘‘I am not completely savvy. I have other riders swearing at me and yelling at me left right and centre and I don’t know if they are telling me the truth or trying to confuse me or what.
‘‘But that’s all part of it. I’ve been around elite sport for so long that I think a couple of little bike racers copping me some abuse isn’t going to worry me too much.’’
When it became clear Torckler would not be bridging the gap, Bond made a series of attacks to try and go for a stage win.
‘‘I’m here to have a go I just thought I’d attack, attack, attack.
‘‘I am back too far on GC to really achieve too much so it’s about showing my colours and being aggressive and if I didn’t achieve anything other than softening up the group and letting Michael try and do something later that was a good result.’’
Bond eventually finished fifth on the stage, which helped propel him into the top 10 overall.
He also had another motivation to do well on Wednesday, with some online banter directed at him from the Iso Whey Sports Swiss Wellness team.
‘‘Someone told me that team Iso Whey called me a silver medal rower on their website last night [Tuesday] so I was just going to show them I am a gold medal rower and this is only my second sport.’’
Bond crashed early on the first stage, injuring his shoulder, but has battled through the pain to record credible results in his first Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) accredited tour.