Taken from the Greenedge website which does not let you link
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24 Feb 12 Judith Arndt Wins Sprint Finish on Tour of New Zealand Stage Three Defending champion Judith Ardnt won the Tour of New Zealand third stage bunch sprint. A ten second bonus at the line accompanied the stage victory. Current race leader Kristin Armstrong (USA) managed second on the stage and, with it, a six second time bonus. Arndt now trails Armstrong by 11 seconds overall.
“The overall is the goal,” said Shara Gillow, who spent the day in the break and on the attack. “We have a strong team, and I reckon GC is within reach.”
“We knew that we would need to reel back Armstrong’s lead a little bit each day,” added Sports Director Rodney McGee. “It's that kind of course, and with only four riders, it’s hard to do it any other way. We’re taking the overall day-by-day and second-by-second. At this point, we’ve gotten a little bit back on both road stages. We’ll hope to continue this over the next two days.”
Gillow animated the 121 kilometre stage between Ashhurst and Apiti. She was part of a three-rider move turned four-strong that included two riders from Jayco-AIS and Evelyn Stevens (USA).
“I got into a break with two Jayco-AIS girls and then Evelyn Stevens made the move,” explained Gillow. “The break split up and come back together. We worked well together for some time until Evie was told to sit on. I sat on a bit, too. We were eventually brought back.”
Although fierce winds made solo moves near impossible, attacks flew fast and furious in the final 20 kilometres.
“I attacked some and so did the other GreenEDGE-AIS girls,” said Gillow, whose repeated attacks left the Americans chasing in her wake.
“It ended up working out perfectly for us,” Gillow added. “Linda [Villumsen] led Judith out, and Judith won. Yesterday, she was second, and it was awesome to get the win today.”
McGee called the stage win a team victory.
“We made good use of the four riders we have,” said McGee. “I find this very encouraging. I’m especially proud of Jessie [MacLean] who really suffered on the climbs yesterday but managed to hang on today to have an input in the finish.”
Two roads stages remain in Palmerston North.
“We have a few different plans that we can play with,” noted Gillow. “There are only four of us, but we are four strong riders. I can see us going for time bonuses or getting some of us the road or both. There are several possibilities.”
Turns out it was Loren Rowney, which meant the bib number was right, just not who the ticker said correct. Good win regardless, there was a lot of crashes, rain and headwind on the course. Tough stage.
Good to see Armstrong there, Jess Allen too, the Junior women's champion (TT). Neylan making an appearance, Carla Ryan and Grace Sulzberger in the Jayco-AIS team too.
just had a dig around, seems that sadly nothing makes it onto youtube about from fans videos from roadside. We need someone in NZ who can record tv reports.
Got to give a big chappeau to Jorge - he is an "interesting character", but you can't fault his passion for both this race and the men's race that he organises ... and you have to give him heaps of credit for treating and organising each race on equal footings. The quality of some of the women's fields that he has managed to attract to such a far flung part of the world are testament to that ...
Yeah it seems to be a great field every year and for such a "low key" sport, its great.
