STAGE ONE – 2024 NZ Cycle Classic

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Hi i’m Tom McCallum an Elite Cyclist from New Zealand, I am currently riding for the Couplands Bakeries Elite Cycling Team.

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The 2024 MIT 10 mega masteron New Zealand cycle classic will once again see Riders from across the world Converge on wire raer for 5 days of international stage racing the 37th Edition has 15 teams which will compete on the roads around the winery District before racing the final stage in New

Zealand’s Capital Wellington since its Inception in 1988 the tour has seen several Champions successfully compete at the highest levels of the sport these have included the likes of Robbie mccuan Julian Dean Richie Port George Bennett and Corbin strong at the end of the week who will add their name to the

Illustrious list of winners of New Zealand’s only UCI 2.2 sanctioned race well Grant welcome along to the New Zealand cycle classic and uh first time for the team here it is y it’s our first time we just drove in yesterday so yeah excited to be here now I know you just

Drove in but of course you you flown in over the last couple of days so how the bodies feeling they’re getting there yeah we’re going to I think take today a little conservative and let the body still adjust we still got some jet lags still got some plane legs and car legs

Too now so yeah it’s a it’s a combination of a lot of factors but yeah we’re hopefully going to feel good and now you guys do a lot of racing together but it’s uh typically on the Val yes sir we usually race on the track together and we’re headed to Adelaide for the

Nations cup after this um this is kind of the start of a a big build for us we’ve got a track camp in Cambridge following this so we’ll we’ll be around for a minute and it’s a big year of course Olympic year and then a lot of uh

Track cyclist here trying to use this as part of the buildup yeah absolutely I mean I think probably half the squad’s got at least the Olympics on their minds and of course we’re here to race on the road right now so it’s kind of dual purpose but yeah we’re excited to be

Here and yeah road racing still a huge part of what we do so right Ollie well welcome back to the tour once again a new kit this year yeah Racing for Southern Cross race racing Academy this year um a good bunch of uh kind of development team for some of the kind

Under 23 Riders and hopefully I can um kind of bring a bit of experience to the team and and hope help the guys develop and have a good race and how important is experience coming into such a UCI event yeah it’s really important like just the way um some of these races are

Run and the way that like um Team Dynamics work especially coming from some guys coming from Club racing where you don’t have the same team Dynamic to have a have a race this early on um it’ll be a good test of form to see how everyone’s been going over the last

Couple of months pretty Keen to be here we’ve got a a good young team so um hopefully we can get some nice results let’s talk a little bit about that team of course uh bridg Lane well established in Australia yeah for sure we’ve got some really good young up and cominging

Riders um so be good to test ourselves against the um some of the guys overseas and um some of the best guys in New Zealand so should be some fun and they tell me the conditions are going to be uh pretty warm here about 30° by the

Time they get to the queen stage yeah I think that suits the Aussies pretty well so um hopefully that plays a little bit into our favor of course another big year for Aaron gate and the national team with the Olympic year this year yeah it’s going to be good and this is

Um sort of the start of our our track towards Paris so it’s good to get this nice endurance Block in Z with the this with this race kicking the year off of course you’re a former winner of this event so bit of experience there what do

You expect of the week yeah it’s good we’ve got a um a good team and I think it’s just going to be a fun week to race aggressive and and see what we can all get out of it um I think yeah it’s been a few years since I won it and I

Slightly slipped down to Second and then third the subsequent years and taken a couple years off so I’ll probably end up fourth this year stage one we’ll see Riders contest the longest stage of this year’s tour at 158 km departing from Maron and making the way out the back blocks towards alfredton

Two circuits there which include Sprint Ace points and K points before returning back into the township of Maron with a short sharp climb at the end of the stage to determine who will be in yellow on day one so the large field here for this year’s tour rolling casually out of

Maron as part of the neutral section before the flag is dropped and instantly we see the likes of Oxford edg’s bile o’donell former Junior real teams Pursuit Champion onto the frontier he’s got the likes of Logan Curry there in the black colors and the New Zealand uh

Kit of course one of the recent writers to be signed up for a real tour team so some big names here involved in this year’s tour and of course being the first stage of the tour there’s a lot of nerves out there Riders will be unaware

Of some of the form of some of these Riders of course the Aussies have just completed their National Road Championship so we’ve got a little bit of an insight to some of them but a man often seen off the front here is this man here camp py disappearing off the

Front there for the Copeland’s team always Keen to stir the race along see what sort of efforts he can put into it as we look to one of the ibuilt uh Team Riders there I think it might be mclone potentially that’s gone himself off the

Front and opening up a bit of a gap he’ll be making some decisions or whether or not it’s a good move to make so early on in the stage but he’s being picked up by one or two other teams including one of the Riders there from

The United States of America as we saw at the top of the show they’re over here at the moment in preparation for the Olympic Games and that there with their endurance base and quite a few teams now being represented off the front a lot of

New colors for a start of a new season pis corser up there we can see the mq team just off to the left they had brand new set of Kit there for the start of the season but it looks like they’ve been pretty much sucked back into the

Fold as you see Aaron Gates and Nick Kazu two of the New Zealand endurance track Squad members going off the front of course gate a former winner of this tour in 2019 they know the the caliber of this man of course the current Real Track Champion as we head into about 45k

Into the stage we start to set ourselves up as a large Paton for the first of the Sprint Ace points and who’s in the mix Aaron gate he sneaks in there gets himself maximum points see George Jackson up there he got third his teammate and also Bale o’ Donnell once

Again it’s familiar names we’re mentioning very early on on the stage as they start to get into the rolling terrain around the circuit of alfredton here they’ll do two circuits where they have a couple of Sprints along the way for the points we’ve just seen the first

Of those and they’ll have a second one um at about 80 odd km into the stage in between that there’s the K points as well so it’ll be interesting to see around this sort of Point often the bunch starts to sit up a we bit have a

Nature break have the feed and then that gives the opportunity for Riders to try and sneak off the front as we see George Jackson the uh the mullet man as he is there on the front there disappearing off the front there’s a few other new colors starting to appear as we see a

Small group now starting to establish probably the first one we’ve seen that’s actually opening up a reasonable sort of a gap and it’s now up to what the paton’s going to do in a reaction here as we look to see some of the names Campbell pery as we said earlier on he’s

In the mix again 126 there for the Copeland’s team 135 that’s Darcy Sanders of the Oxford Edge team they’ve been pretty prevalent towards the fronts and it’s early on in this particular stage here also got the Southern Cross Racing Academy I think one of the sharpest

Looking kits out there and that sort of greeny looking black colors there Jame CR there is the man up there James well performed bike rider he’s got himself off in the mix and the one Australian with them is Liam white of the cas team the Australian team that’s been over a

Couple of times and are always Keen to stir things up off the front of the race as we get some great Drone footage here of The Paton well spread out here but not looking under a lot of pressure here as they continue to allow those four to

Open up a decent sort of a gap and we’ve often seen this over the last couple of years of course the conditions this year much improved from what we experienced last year where they actually had to shorten the stage by one lap due to the condition but you can see there looking

Pretty relaxed in The Paton as Riders there get a bit of food into themselves bit of hydration looking pretty relaxed as the Gap now opens to over 3 minutes and 8 seconds as we approach the 100K Mark here for these Riders at about 90 can at this point in time for these guys

And that’s who are looking pretty strong out in front pretty cohesive here and that’s what you want to do you forget about your colors and you have to ride ride well as a unit the time slowly but surely dropping a little bit now down to about 2 minutes 30 as they try to

Desperately pick up the K points and there we go we see the sign there at 500 M as two Riders have a good crack at it there and it’s white of Australia who picks himself up the second of the K points including the first one which

Will should put him into the polka dot Jersey at the end of day one here on the tour No Doubt we’re going to see the pallet on those starts to wake up here they they’ve allowed those Riders to pick up those points those various classifications but the all important

Yellow Jersey very much up for grabs as we now look at it being at about a minute 15 as we see it approaching around just over 100 km into the stage 158 it’s a long way into the stage here to be able to try and hold off a pellet

On and you can see the faces on these guys they starting to fatigue a fe bit and you don’t blame them it has been tough Yer out there as we see a great shot there of the Pon continuing to to shut things on down here these Riders

Now getting close to around 120 km into the stage look like they’re going to be sucked back into the fold here and it’s now back to the rest of the paleton to take on the challenge to bring them into masteron often you do see one Riders

Trying to sneak off the front but at this point in time things are being controlled by one of the other Australian teams the bridgelane team a very well performed team in the national series over in Australia and across Asia in fact who are trying to control things

Down the left hand side here as they hit into the township of Maran they know they got this tough little climb it’s a short and sharp effort up this climb here very Punchy positioning all the important there as we see the likes of kirazu trying to lead his teammates out

There as they head into the St George Continental team here we can see New Zealand representative team up there all the black colors looks like the likes of George Jackson Kean Watts but it looks like now his teammate his leader Aaron gate has escaped himself off the front

And he has opened up a decent sort of a gap here there’s no real response from the rest of the field I just don’t think they’ve got the leagues on it and the man who’s just been announced as a halberg finalist has taken out the stage

The 2019 Champion has set the mark for the start of day one of this 2024 Edition well Campbell into the most combative of the day and you certainly were spending a fair bit of time off the front yeah know it was um I wanted to be

Aggressive when I came here you know um got Nationals coming up and luckily enough to get a ride from Tom and Bruce um so yeah I wanted to you know get the Jersey off the front for them and we just want to have a hard Works racing

And how was the cohesion amongst the four of you pretty good took a while to get going but there’s uh Liam white from K spk up as well who was super strong so we were trying but yeah it’s just not enough in the end I guess the conditions

Made a big part to play in that today when that wind died away yeah it did I mean the wind was still there a little bit it was was just swirling up that Valley so never really a proper Tailwind which um probably didn’t help us if it’

Been a bit faster we could have been him for a chance but uh it is what it is well congratulations on day one look forward to seeing your in action tomorrow y awesome thank you well William you and the team today were pretty proactive yeah no it was good we

Had Liam white in the break and um most of the boys like sitting in for the bunch Sprint for a few of us that are good at these like one two minute efforts so and there’s a lot of under 23s going to be buying for this particular Jersey but also potentially

The yellow as well yeah and know there’s a strong contingent under 23s here especially some of the Australian guys they can climb really well and I reckon they could be up for even the overall JC so it’ll be a good battle and just tell us a little bit about the team and your

Preparation sort of racing you guys do yeah no we’re Australian Continental team so we’re racing in Asia and maybe a bit in Europe this year um last year is the first year of like the new sponsors on board like previously Oliver so now we have a we have a good team like good

Sponsors behind us and like it’ll be really good to have another strong Continental team racing like around the world so of course you were here last year we finished in the rain a bit warmer here today yeah no last year is uh pretty chaotic in the rain and the

Shorten stage and a lot of guys packing it in just because of the rain but this year like nice beautiful sky and good scenery good race and of course into martinb bro tomorrow the winery District expecting a bunch kick yeah I mean normally it’s a bunch kick like maybe

The break might stay away but we got a few guys we can try a few things so it should be should be good well congratulations on the under 23 Jersey we look forward to seeing you racing tomorrow awesome thanks sir thanks this year’s T how did it sort of roll out for

You and the team yeah um was the longest stage but we definitely weren’t McKing around at the start it was pretty Relentless first hour or I think probably hour and a half of racing with just um countless attacks going one after the other with um kind of everyone

Wanting to be in the Breakaway and it was yeah made it it made it good fun it’s kind of first stage is often like that when everyone comes in with fresh legs and then um finally once the break did go I think everyone kind of that didn’t make it breathe the side of

Relief it was like okay and then break pretty quickly went out to um went out to 3 minutes and some cohesion started amongst us in the in the back with some us and um putting Ryan Christensen on the front with some of the other um teams putting it right up to and managed

To yeah slowly slowly reel the the break back and to set it up for a Sprint finish at the end and talk us through that Sprint finish I mean it’s a decent little short sharp climb here but how did the team sort of form at the front

Yeah well we we came off the out of the Valley into the the final drag into into town on the main road and it was tail innd there so it was just rapid and real fight for position to come into that last Corner because everyone wants to be

Be there and coming into that roundabout so it’s always a little bit sketchy but luckily there was no no crashes and um yeah guys did a good job of setting me up and I could just I just started moving up probably 600 to go and saw

Kean on the right of me and said go you’ve got the legs so he did this uh fantastic slingshot for me into the last Corner after after GJ had held us yeah sitting on on the outside all the way into that final roundabout so just meant

That from there I just had to Sprint with everything I had for the last 250 and it was nice to see a gap behind me so man had time to get the arms of the year and of course some fantastic news during the stage as well hellberg finalist yeah that’s uh fantastic news

Pretty pretty excited about that was some cool news to receive just after the winning of stage two so nice to have two but a good news all in one day well congratulations on a fantastic day one thank you very much cheers see you tomorrow [Applause] La St