Burnett has made the stage from Mossburn to the Remarkables, near Queenstown, his own since winning his debut tour in 2022.
The PowerNet rider made it three stage wins from three attempts yesterday as he and Matthew Wilson stomped their way up the 6km ascent of the skifield access road.
Burnett rolled around Wilson in the final metres after a slow-motion sprint, but with enough time to throw the antlers-up sign made famous by his favourite rugby team, the Southland Stags.
Earlier in the day, Alex Heaney and Craig Oliver were able to finally make a break stick after multiple attempts by would-be protagonists.
As they worked hard around beautiful Lake Wakatipu and their advantage grew to more than 3min, tremors of nervousness went through the peloton.
A crash on the Fairlight straight, one of several this year, and the strongest cross-headwind this week made life tough for all the riders, and the climb led to a shake-up of most of the race’s classifications.
Burnett has a 15sec lead over Wilson, while Ben Dyball also produced a great climb to claim third on the stage, along with third overall and the lead in the over-35 classification.
Macaulay Ford-Goodtech lead the team classification, Noah Hollamby is the leading under-23 rider in fifth place overall, James Gardner leads the sprint ace standings and William Heffernan holds a one-point lead in the king of the mountain classification.
"I just want to take my hat off to my team today," Burnett said.
"The expectation is on us to control and they did a fantastic job."
It was PowerNet’s second stage win in succession, another strong result despite losing Ollie Jones to a serious crash on Tuesday.
Jones was back in the team van for the Queenstown stage, albeit with a fractured wrist, elbow and hip.
"I’m stoked that I could finish it off for them," Burnett said.
"Matt was super strong ... he did most of the work today.
‘‘When we got to the bottom, we had a pretty big gap and I was on the ropes for a little bit, but after that I felt quite controlled, and approaching the top I was pretty sure I’d be able to come around."
Oliver had tried to jump away from Heaney early in the climb and steal a march on the peloton before being overtaken, but he was rewarded for his hard mahi with the most combative jersey.
The other feature of stage four of the SBS Bank-sponsored tour was the return of the historic Kingston Flyer, the beloved steam train racing the riders along the Fairlight straight for the first time since 2008.
PowerNet will be tasked with another hard day of keeping things on track in stage five, a lengthy 166km stage from Invercargill to Lumsden.
The leader’s orange jersey has changed hands after every stage this week so far, including stints with Southlanders Marshall Erwood and Tom Sexton.
"Marshall and Tom have had it over me this week, so it’s pretty cool to get a third Southlander in the orange jersey," Burnett said.
"To have all that support out on the roads and so many friends and family ... it’s been super special and hopefully it’s more of the same for the next few days."
Tour of Southland
Results/classification
• Stage 4: Josh Burnett 2hr 37min 58sec, 1; Matthew Wilson same time, 2; Ben Dyball +27sec, 3; Daniel Whitehouse +27sec, 4; Lindon Milostic +43sec, 5.
• General classification: Burnett 10hr 24min 25sec, 1; Wilson +15sec, 2; Dyball +39sec, 3; Whitehouse +49sec, 4; Noah Hollamby +1min 24sec, 5. — Tour of Southland
