Harbour man guns down field

NORTH HARBOUR pro Taylor Gunman held firm in the rain to win the NZ Cycle Classic in Palmerston North.

He had snatched the yellow jersey in Feilding on Friday and despite a crash when a group of 10 went down on the Pahiatua Track yesterday, his Avanti Cycling Team team looked after him.

Gunman won the tour from team-mate Jason Christie (Ashburton) who trailed by one second going in to yesterday’s final 164.2 km stage from Manawatu to Pahiatua and return. The final margin was six seconds.

Avanti virtually had the team title wrapped up yet again but this time with two days to spare. The others in the quintet, all New Zealanders, were national champion Joseph Cooper, who won the prologue time trial, Tom Davidson, Christie and time-trial runnerup Fraser Gough.

‘‘Our team rode out of their skins today,’’ Gunman said. ‘‘It was genuine teamwork this week.

‘‘This was the first time for me to win a UCI tour and one of my biggest accomplishments.’’

The stage in to Palmerston North was won by Australian Joshua Prete riding for the Budget Forklifts team. He outsprinted New Zealand National Team rider James Oram in the uphill finish as Oram was chasing his second stage win in two days.

In third was Kiwi Nick Bain from Nature Valley Avanti.

New Zealand rider Mike Northey and Data#3 Symantec’s Scott Thomas (Australia) did the donkey work on the mountainous, wet stage. They were out in front for 115km and were only hauled in ascending the Pahiatua Track from Wairarapa.

At one stage they had been out by five minutes.

Oram and Prete attacked and Avanti knew they were no threat to the general classification and let them go.

The Australian pro from Ballarat, Rhys Gillett (Team Scoby Downunder) held the king-of-themountains polka dot jersey throughout the tour.

New Zealand team rider Dion Smith won the under-23 title after wearing the white jersey through all the road stages.