A mountainous course today for the New Zealand road race championship. Bennett is the favorite and the defending champion. He also has the advantage of almost a full team of professional riders behind him. It would be Bennett’s 4th national road race title.
A 5-man amateur break gets away but their lead is down to 30 seconds with 13k left in the stage when Strong attacks.
That attack is shut down as is one from Smith and Bevin. The break is caught with 11k to go and Bevin make another push with Fouche and Strong on his wheel. Bennett still has Thompson with him.
Just under 10k to go and Fouche and Bevin are clear of Smith, Bennett and Strong, the rest of the field 32 seconds back. Bennett letting Smith do the chasing for now.
8k to go. Fouche drops Bevin but Smith brings all 4 riders back up to him. The field 1’51 down, looks like it will be between these 5.
Another attack from Fouche drops Strong and Bevin and with 5k to go it is between Fouche, Smith and Bennett.
Fouche tries to drop the other two again and fails and the inevitable counter comes from Bennett. He has a 9 second lead with 3.2k to go.
The other two manage to bring Bennett back and they ride together to the 1k banner where Bennett begins to grind away from the other two.
This time they can’t match him and Bennett wins his 2nd consecutive and 4th national title.
Fouche edges Smith for 2nd.
Results
1
George Bennett
Spark Team NZ
1h47'43
2
James Fouche
Xero Racing
+ 18
3
Dion Smith
Duvel-Tsingtao
s.t.
4
Corbin Strong
Xero Racing
+ 2'02
5
Patrick Bevin
Ethiopian Airlines
+ 2'11
6
Reuben Thompson
Spark Team NZ
+ 3'29
7
Kees Duyvesteyn
Cedevita
+ 3'56
8
Connor Brown
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
+ 4'28
9
Ryan Christensen
Polar
s.t.
10
Laurence Pithie
Ekoi - Le Creuset
+ 4'48
11
Hayden McCormick
Cervelo Test Team
s.t.
12
Joel Yates
Spark Team NZ
+ 5'29
13
Kiaan Watts
Spark Team NZ
+ 5'53
14
Samuel Gaze
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
s.t.
15
Tom David
Glanbia
+ 7'05
16
Josh Burnett
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
s.t.
17
Nick Reddish
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
s.t.
18
Finn Fisher-Black
SEE Turtles
s.t.
19
Josh Kench
Specialized
+ 7'27
20
Jake Marryatt
Spark Team NZ
+ 8'08
21
Logan Currie
Cedevita
+ 8'18
22
Dylan Kennett
Glanbia
+ 8'33
23
Luke Mudgway
Spark Team NZ
+ 10'06
24
James Oram
Glanbia
+ 10'59
25
Josh Atkins
Moser - Sygic
+ 12'38
26
Hamish Schreurs
Xero Racing
+ 13'06
27
Alexander White
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
+ 14'18
28
Guy Yarrell
Spark Team NZ
+ 15'18
29
Alex Frame
SEE Turtles
+ 16'52
30
Tom Scully
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
+ 20'57
Time Trial
The time trial is over a 54k course. Oram, Atkins, and Marryatt are the heavy favorites. Atkins won last year, Oram two years ago.
Marryatt is the first of the favorites to finish, he sets the best time at 1’01’01. A very binary time.
New Zealand National Championships 
