KEY POINTS:
The battle for supremacy in the Wellington cycling classic has boiled down to a two-way battle between Gordon McCauley of the Trek-Zookeepers Cafe team and Australian David Pell of the Savings and Loans quintet.
With just four stages to go, Pell, 26, from Bendigo, will need to pull out something special in stages four and five today and tomorrow in the Wairarapa if he is to prise the yellow jersey off the Counties-Manukau rider's back.
McCauley took control yesterday of the leader's jersey after a masterful ride in the morning's 117km stage two from Featherston to Masterton and then held on to it by finishing second in the evening's third stage, a 40km criterium in Masterton, to lead by 22 seconds on general classification.
Hayden Godfrey is third, one minute and five seconds behind McCauley but his Subway team's hopes took a body blow when Logan Hutchings suffered a puncture in the morning leaving him just over 18 minutes off the overall pace.
"We had some bad luck (yesterday)," Subway team manager Greg Hume said. "We also had (international triathlete) Kris Gemmell falling after crashing into another rider whose handlebars came off.
Godfrey has the sprinter's jersey and besides defending that, Subway are reduced to looking for stage wins now.
Zookeepers and Savings and Loans look to be fairly even on the road -- but that's not taking into account McCauley's well-known penchant to do the unexpected like going for it all on his own.
"Who knows, I might just take off . . . ," he jokingly replied after being asked what the plan was for today's 158km Masterton to Pahiatua and back stage.
Certainly McCauley is loath to give up a yellow jersey that has evaded him in five appearances on the tour.
"Every time I race here, I tell (race director) Jorge (Sandoval) I'm going to win it but I have never (until yesterday) won a sprint, a stage, a yellow jersey or king of the mountain in the race," McCauley said.
And he will not lack for support from a well-oiled team who mean business.
The Zookeepers showed their ability to defend the yellow jersey in the criterium when Hayden Roulston, Marc Ryan, Sam Bewley and Matthew Haydock all took turns to ride shotgun for McCauley and cover any attacks by Savings and Loans riders.
McCauley produced a masterful ride in the morning's race to Masterton, clocking two hours, 35 minutes, 12 seconds, beating Pell, in a two-man sprint finish. Third was Godfrey, 41 seconds adrift.
Despite Savings & Loans having Pell, Brett Aitken and Craig McCartney in a breakaway group of seven that also included McCauley, the Australians could not shake him off after he planted himself in the most advantageous position at the back of the group.
Having done no work at the front of the lead group for almost two hours, McCauley was relatively fresh when Pell made his move with 9km to go.
"When David attacked, I jumped away with him and managed to beat him in the sprint.
"Tactically, it went pretty much perfectly," McCauley said.
Pell said Savings & Loan had given a strong performance yesterday.
"We had three guys up there and Brett worked really hard for me.
"We had McCauley up there with us all day. . . I had to lead the sprint out from a long way and he managed to get me," Pell said.
- NZPA
