Kiwis ready for one last defence

Jul 24th, 11. The young Nouvelle Zealande team in Canada are ready for one more day of defending their GC lead after today's Stage 6 street circuit in the Tour de l'Abitibi.

James Oram and Dion Smith placed 1st and 2nd in the opening stage of this U19 UCI Nations Cup event and with the help of George Hubbard, Tom Nicholson and Hamish Scheurs they have defended and extended their lead over the last five stages.

"Today's Stage 6 was definitely by the far the loosest (if I can put it that way), the 11km street circuit had 16 corners - some with only 50m between each other -  so when the bunch started to jam, it was single file and flying," Oram told RoadCycling.co.nz.

After the second lap, Oram, Smith and Scheurs made it into a promising break, but the group failed to work together.  After Oram claimed an interim sprint, and its 3sec time bonus, the Kiwis stopped doing all the work and the peloton came back together.

"In the next time sprint, Dion rolled 3rd to gain a 1sec bonus. The pace never seemed to drop, with the boys having to drill it to bring back attacks and stay near the front," Oram said.

The 2h13m race over 99km averaged 44.4kph.

In the sprint finish, Smith was just pipped for 3rd place. The 18 year old placed 4th in the field bunch sprint and earned another 1sec time bonus. 

"With the rest of us finishing in the bunch and both Dion and I extending our lead by a few seconds, It was a good day. The last stage is tomorrow, it's going to hurt but we will do everything to keep GC and get on the podium," he said.

The Kiwis are 93.8km away from winning the overall tour, and just 4sec away from the USA team who currently lead the Nations Cup competition.

Go Kiwis go!