{image}Hayden Roulston buried his grief at the death of a beloved aunt in Ashburton yesterday and used it as inspiration to complete a hat-trick of wins in the Tour of Southland cycling race today.
With the victory, he joins a select list of riders who have won the tour at least three times -- Tino Tabak from 1965-67 and Brian Fowler between 1985-90. Fowler won twice more in 1992 and 1995.
Going into the eighth and penultimate stage this morning, Roulston trailed double winner (1996 and 2005) Gordon McCauley by 17 seconds.
Roulston and his Southland Times Trek team had tried everything to take the tour lead since McCauley grabbed the yellow jersey after the third stage on Tuesday and the race developed into a battle between two grandmasters playing chess on wheels.
Roulston won two stages on Wednesday in rain, hail and snow, but to his chagrin, McCauley stayed with him to hang on to the yellow jersey.
The double Olympics medallist attacked on stages six and seven which each featured tough hill climbs but again McCauley had the resilience to defend his lead with canny riding.
Roulston finally produced the checkmate move 36km into the 79km stage from Te Anau to Lumsden this morning.
The peloton had split into two with 22 riders just under a minute up the road while McCauley and Roulston watched each other in the trailing peloton.
When the front bunch reached the base of the Gorge Hill, Roulston, led out by teammate Sam Bewly, raced out to bridge a 40-second gap. McCauley jumped with them but was unable to match Roulston's pace.
Dropping back, he was unable to organise a pursuit with the trailing bunch and left with no more aces to play.
Roulston put the hammer down on the descent and drove his bunch out to a lead of over two minutes on McCauley and the job was done.
To guarantee his tour win, Roulston made sure he won a bonus time sprint at Mossburn to pick up another three seconds.
Holding a lead of two minutes, nine seconds over McCauley at the start of the last stanza, Roulston purred his way through the 64.4km ninth stage from Winton to Invercargill unchallenged.
Roulston told NZPA he learned his aunt, Lynn Nichol, had suddenly died in Ashburton hospital at the age of 66 last evening.
"I basically used that for inspiration." He said it was hard to explain the pure satisfaction at pulling off the move which won him the race.
"Last night I spent probably a good 30 minutes to an hour just visualising and remembering what it felt like when I did that the last time, and it definitely helped.
"It couldn't have gone better -- it wasn't easy going at that hill.
"It's a testament to (team manager) Ron (Cheatley). We planned the move again, everyone knew it was going to happen, there was no other move to do. I'm pretty happy to get away with it.
"We wanted a group to go up there and sit 30-40 seconds ahead but it turned out there was a massive group up the road, then Gordy pulled his men off the front (so as to try and slow our group down)." But Roulston counter-punched by having teammates Sam Bewly, Shane Melrose and Paul Odlin take to the front to keep the gap just wide enough for Roulston to bridge at the right moment.
"Sam led into the Gorge Hill climb as hard as he could go for about 200 metres, then I set a strong tempo before attacking just where it began to pinch up again." McCauley was a little disappinted at the result but said he was happy to have raced well.
"I came down here to chase the green jersey and perhaps some stage wins and I come away with second overall. I think I put up a pretty good fight." Roulston said it was unlikely he would ever be in good enough shape to win the tour again given his commitment to racing in Europe from next year.
"It is kind of a swansong -- to bow out with a third win is the best way to finish a great year." But McCauley will be back to seek his third win.
"I love this race. It was my 15th tour and I was beaten by a good rider who deserves his win. I gave it my all and I'll be back." Roulston's winning time was 20hr 14min 21sec with McCauley at 1min 58sec. Third was Heath Blackgrove of Colourplus at 4min 56sec.
Stage eight was won by American Kirk O'Bee of Hilo Decorating in 1hr 42min 58sec with Shem Roger (Raboplus, same time) second and Jeremy Yates (Subway-Avanti, same time) third. Stage nine was won by Canadian Dominique Rollin (Delmaine R&R) in 1hr 26min 07sec followed by Charles Dionne (Canada, Hilo Decorating, same time) and McCauley (same time).
Rollin won the sprints while Yates retained the king of the mountains title. Subway Avanti topped the team standings.
