Australians ruled the road time trials on the day three of the Oceania cycling championships in Southland today.
Small fields braved bitterly cold winds for the road time trials at Winton, near Invercargill, this morning.
The men's elite and under-23 races as well as elite women's grade were all claimed by Australians.
Drew Ginn, competing in his first major cycling event after finishing a stellar rowing career highlighted by three Olympic gold medals and five world championships, justified his career switch by winning the men's event
Victorian Ginn clocked 51 minutes 8 seconds for the challenging 40km course, 1min 35sec ahead of last year's national champion Logan Hutchings.
Michael Matthew (Australian Institute of Sport) won the under-23 gold in an even quicker time: 48min 21sec ahead of Alex McGregor (Central Otago) who clocked 50min 31sec.
Alexis Rhodes won the elite women's gold by 4secs ahead of New Zealand Olympian and Cambridge-based national champion Melissa Holt (Cambridge).
Another Australian, Bridie O'Donnell, took bronze a 1sec further back.
Rhodes, the former world junior pursuit champion, timed her run in the 25km race perfectly, clocking 33min 39sec.
In other results, Andrew van der Heyden (Waimate) won the under-19 title over 25km, clocking 35min 20sec ahead of Otago's Patrick Jones. Auckland 16-year-old Georgia Williams won the under -19 girls title with a time of 41min 53secs.
