An outstanding climb on the Remarkables from Josh Burnett has seen the local favourite win the Queen Stage and take control of this year’s SBS Bank Tour of Southland.
Preparation paid off for the 24-year-old, who has spent recent weeks making some lonely ascents in all kinds of weather up the extended 10km climb on the Remarkables access road.
Burnett (Creation Signs-MitoQ-NZ Cycling Project), who won the shorter 6km version of the stage on debut in 2021 and was third in 2022 on the way to winning the tour, started the day trailing leader Bailey O’Donnell (Holmes Solutions) by 31sec, but now leads the race by 48sec heading into the iconic Bluff Hill stage.
While anyone who lost money in the Melbourne Cup will understand that backing a favourite isn’t a guaranteed strategy, Burnett didn’t let home advantage or the favourite’s tag distract him.
After riding through the main peloton and catching the front runners with Daniel Whitehouse (Quality Foods Southland) early in the climb, Burnett then stuck to his own plan to lead home Matthew Wilson (Advanced Personnel Cycling) by 32sec, with Whitehouse third on the stage.
“Dan Whitehouse was super strong from the bottom and pretty much put it at the exact pace that I wanted,” Burnett said.
“All the GC guys that I was worried about weren’t there within five minutes…it sounds pretty boring but I just stared at the power metre for the last 10 minutes to not go too far over my head.
“It’s pretty special to get another win on the Remarks, especially this high up. I’ve worked really hard on my long climbing, I’ve driven up here a lot with Mum and by myself and trained in bad weather, so the hard work has paid off.”
Australian Aiden Sinclair (Business South) was the first rider onto the climb from a big bunch who were able to edge away from the pack but never threatened to make the gap a punishing one. While Sinclair was swallowed up early, he was rewarded with the Most Combative jersey.
Fellow Australian Declan Trezise (Transport Engineering Southland-Deep South) continues to build a strong lead in the under 23 standings and is placed fifth overall, while Southland’s Luke Macpherson (Macaulay Ford-GoodTech) leads the over 35 classification.
While O’Donnell relinquished the orange jersey, he does have a handy lead in the Sprint Ace classification, with Burnett leading the King of the Mountain race.
Creation Signs-MitoQ-NZ Cycling Project capped a strong performance across their riders by taking over the teams classification.
“It might sound weird that it’s almost better to take (the lead) now rather than me getting it on the first day and having to put the boys on the front the whole time,” Burnett said.
“Even today we had so many teams helping that we didn’t have to have the boys rolling when we thought we might be the only team doing it. It’s a bit of payback because we’ve got some super strong guys in this team who could all have a good shot at the GC, or compete for stage wins. We are a team, we’ve been a team all year and they have sacrificed a lot for me.”
The hard work continues tomorrow on the 154km stage from Invercargill to Bluff, a stage which Burnett would dearly love to win.
“We go past my house twice…it’s where I grew up cycling on the mountainbiking tracks there. I know there will be lots of friends and family out there and it’s the one that I haven’t won and I really want to win. There will be a bit of work coming up for the boys but we are excited - the race is on and we are up for it.”