Hadden answered a late call up from team-mate Kiaan Watts into the PowerNet team, and was pleased he did after a third-placed finish in the stage one street race around Invercargill’s Queens Park yesterday was enough to give him a slim lead in both the general classification and under-23 categories.
"It’s my first time here. I’ve heard lots about the tour and how great it is, so it’s a privilege to be here and to be in the lead," Hadden said.
"We had high hopes for the [team time trial] this morning, but just missed out, so we came in with lots of confidence that we could do well in the crit [criterium] and we executed well."
Dunedin’s James Gardner (Creation Signs-MitoQ-NZ Cycling Project) claimed stage one honours for the second time in two years, the big under-23 rider getting into the decisive break alongside Hadden and second-placed Samuel Jenner (Central Benchmakers-Willbike) midway through the 10-lap stage.
Earlier, the pace was set by New Zealand endurance rider Tom Sexton (Macaulay Ford-GoodTech) in front of his home Invercargill crowd, alongside Timaru’s James Wilson.
Once Sexton had secured the early sprint points on offer, the race powered its way to the finish, with the breakaway trio of Gardner, Jenner and Hadden holding a 20-second lead almost all the way to the finish line.
"I saw two guys go up the road and I knew they’d be quite dangerous, so I jumped across as quickly as possible and fortunately we made it to the line," Hadden said. "There's a lot of racing to come and some hard stages, definitely. The tour is only young, so we’ll see what we can do."
Creation Signs-MitoQ-NZ Cycling Project, with 2022 winner Josh Burnett in the lineup, put the peloton on notice early with a strong ride in the prologue team time trial, finishing six seconds clear of PowerNet, with Transport Engineering Southland-Deep South third.
Gardner did not finish with the top four riders from his team, otherwise he would have been able to add the orange and pink jerseys to the wardrobe ahead of today’s 166km stage two from Invercargill to Lumsden.
Glenn Haden (Couplands-Cycling Tom) leads the over-35 classification, which has been dedicated to the late Ken Lasenby.
— APL
