Vink still leads tour but Piccoli no quitter
Cycling
Many Tour of Southland observers would have been surprised to see defending champion James Piccoli on the startline yesterday, let alone standing atop the podium at the end of stage four.
The Canadian went down in a spectacular crash at the bottom of Coronet Peak on stage three on Wednesday, but managed to recover in time to not only ride, but win, the arduous stage four from Invercargill to Bluff.
"I was pretty sore. It definitely took me an extra couple of coffees to get going. This is my job and I’m used to crashing. I have a routine for looking after myself and tending to my wounds," he said.
"[Wednesday] was a bit of a personal disappointment. The team rode for me all day and sacrificed themselves for me, it was just a technical mistake coming into the last corner with a little bit of gravel on the road."
Piccoli won the stage by five seconds from his Kia Motors-Ascot Park Hotel team-mate Hamish Bond, with tour leader Michael Vink matching Bond’s efforts to retain the leader’s jersey.
"Today was a little bit of redemption for that and we went one-two with myself and Hamish getting a little bit back on GC," Piccoli said.
It was fast and furious racing yesterday, with a break soon developing that was made up of most of the various jersey contenders. Through Woodlands, Edendale and Wyndham the race was buffeted by crosswinds, before making the daunting turn back towards Invercargill into a 40kmh westerly, with the shadow of Motupohue lurking in the distance.
It was Bond who struck out for a stage win first before Piccoli finished the job for their team.
"The race isn’t done, like we saw today, if you get caught on the wrong side of a break you can lose minutes. We still have a strong team and we will look to animate the race and we definitely aren’t going to give up." Vink has a 1min 32 secs lead over Bond. Sam Gaze is almost two more minutes back in third after losing a chunk of time yesterday. Piccoli sits just outside the top three, 3min 24 secs behind Vink, ahead of a 151km stage from Invercargill to Gore.