KEY POINTS:
As predicted by overnight leader, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, T-Mobile teammate Judith Arndt took control of the yellow race leader's jersey in the women's cycling tour of New Zealand today.
With a polished display of mountain climbing, Arndt emerged from the shadows of Teutenberg, who won the first stage, and teammate Oenone Wood, who took out the second and third stages.
Arndt clocked three hours 44 minutes 38 seconds in today's 125.5km fourth stage with Australia's Lorian Graham in second at 3hr 46min 16sec and Cheerwine's Leigh Hobson third at the same time.
The stage ended with an 11km climb of the steep Admiral Hill, which is preceded by two other lengthy climbs.
Such was the influence of the stage, five of the top 10 riders on general classification until today fell out of the list.
They were Teutenberg, New Zealand's Joanne Kiesanowski, Germany's Charlotte Becker, Cheerwine's Laura van Gilder and Loes Gunnewuk, of Flexpoint.
Those who improved were Arndt (seventh to first), Hobson (sixth to second), the Australian Institute of Sport's Nikki Egyed (fourth to fifth), Wood (11th to fifth) Cheerwine's Catherine Cheatley (10th to seventh), Flexpoint's Susanne Ljungskog (eighth to seventh), Australia's Vicki Whitelaw (20th to eight), Candice Sullivan of the AIS (15th to ninth) and Samsung New Zealand's Gina Waibl (21st to 10th).
Arndt's time after four stages is 11hr 3min 57sec, with Cheatley 3min 23sec behind.
On being told she had improved to seventh overall, Cheatley said with a big grin: "Not bad for a fat-assed trackie (track rider), huh?"
Cheatley is using the tour and next week's national track championships in invercargill to prepare for the world championships in Spain this month where she will contest the points and scratch races.
T-Mobile's teamwork was impeccable today as their riders Alexis Rhodes, Linda Villumsen and Teutenberg all took turns to make breakaways while Wood sheltered Arndt for the final run up Admiral's Hill.
The New Zealand team fought hard to stem the T-Mobile tide but were struck by bad luck when recognised climber Rosara Joseph had a puncture and was then unable to push hard because she had the wrong gearing on her bike.
New Zealand's Michelle Hyland was among a group of eight who made an early breakaway.
Despite still carrying stitches to her stomach after falling in the Tour of Geelong last week, Hyland made a strong effort to stay in front.
But when she was caught by Villumsen and then Arndt with 40km to go, she couldn't stay on the wheels of either rival.
With 1min 45sec in hand over Hobson, and almost 3min to Graham, Arndt is confident of defending the yellow jersey in tomorrow's final two stages, a 14km time trial in the morning in Wellington and a criterium in the city in the afternoon.
'My time trial abilities are not so bad and I think it was a hard finish today and everybody suffered," Arndt said when asked whether she thought anyone could come back at her.
For defending champions New Zealand, all that is left is to defend the sprinter's jersey which is held by Marina Duvnjak after Kiesanowski fell to 19th overall at 4min 59sec with Toni Bradshaw 11th (at 4min 18sec) and Sarah Ulmer 15th (at 4min 32).
- NZPA
