Roulston still leads with some help from his Kiwi mates

Outstanding teamwork by his Olympic team-mates will see Hayden Roulston take a 32-second lead into tomorrow’s final day of the Tour des Deux-Sevres in France today.

Roulston, competing with his BikeNZ Olympic endurance track squad, had to call on Marc Ryan and Sam Bewley to ensure he was able to retain leader’s jersey in the four-day race in north west France.

Today’s 159km road stage with a three-lap 13km finishing circuit was extremely active with a number of breaks until a group of five riders went clear at the 50km mark, three of them within reach of Roulston’s overall lead.

They pushed the gap out to two minutes which meant that the kiwi had lost his lead in the tour.

Ryan (Timaru) and Bewley (Rotorua) answered the call, pushing to the front of the peloton and driving the chase, finally receiving support from two other teams. The break was caught before the finishing circuit, with attacks coming constantly including one from Roulston but none were successful.

Frenchman Yann Le Quéau from the Brest-Iroise team took the bunch sprint with Roulston safely home in the pack to retain the tour lead, while Ryan and Bewley finished a few hundred metres behind after an excellent day’s work.

There is a 15km time trial and 100km road stage to complete the tour tomorrow.