Groom may be in yellow

BY NATHAN BURDON IN TE ANAU

Most men are guilty of a few jitters the night before their wedding, but Heath Blackgrove had another reason to be nervous as he stared up at his bedroom ceiling in Te Anau last night.

Before he gets married to former Southland triathlete Sharyon Johns in Invercargill tonight, there's the not-inconsequential matter of the Tour of Southland's yellow jersey to defend through two final stages today.

The Zookeepers-Cycle Surgery rider holds a slim 11sec lead over Colourplus' Marc Ryan in second place after a tumultuous penultimate day on the PowerNet-sponsored race yesterday.

The pair will fight over the Southland title today through two short stages, from Te Anau to Lumsden and from Winton to Invercargill.

Blackgrove, however, looked anything but nervous after yesterday's stage finish in Te Anau.

Behind the fatigue from another gruelling day in the saddle there is a steely resolve that this will be the Waimate rider's year.

"We've got the strongest team in the race," was Blackgrove's frank assessment.

"It will be close and it's definitely not over. This Tour has been won and lost on the last day numerous times and we have got to be wary of that. There's a lot of dangerous guys still."

Realistically, Ryan, the Olympic pursuiter who goes by the nickname "Dream", is the only one who can turn Blackgrove's jersey defence into a nightmare.

Third-placed Jack Bauer had a huge day trying to hold on to the yellow jersey after missing out on the break yesterday and should be a spent force.

Even if he isn't, the 1min 7sec deficit he has on Blackgrove is all but insurmountable on the final day of the Southland tour.

Good teams have been able to construct winning attacks around the Gorge Hill climb soon after the stage start out of Te Anau, but there doesn't appear to be a team capable of challenging Blackgrove's zebra-striped herd today.

Blackgrove was surprised that Bissell Pro Cycling, which had Peter Latham in second and Jeremy Vennell in third on general classification going into the stage, and Subway-Avanti had been caught out by the early break.

"We wanted to put pressure on Jack's team early. Obviously Jack's riding amazingly strong but he hasn't got the team – they were going to have a hard time defending. They are down a guy and we wanted to put pressure on early," he said.

"I was very surprised there was no Bissell and no Subway-Avanti. I don't know what they were doing. They were caught napping at the start and ended up having to chase. I would have preferred to have someone from them up there and then they wouldn't have chased and the gap would have ballooned. In the end I still had the legs to drive it home."

American Floyd Landis, from the Cyclingnzshop.com-Bio Sport team, was making the most of the Zookeepers-Cycle Surgery couch after the climb up the Crown Range on Thursday and he could well be in support of Blackgrove's squad over the final two stages today.

Colourplus and Marc Ryan will have spent the past two days forging alliances of their own, particularly with only three riders surviving from their original squad.

Blackgrove finished second up Bluff Hill on Monday but won the yellow jersey and has had the look of a champion about him all week.

The tour is finely balanced, but we should know by about 3pm today whether the groom will be wearing yellow.

- © Fairfax NZ News