CYCLING: Jack Bauer has 24 hours to cement Tour lead

6th November 2009

Do you remember the hit American TV series 24?

The protagonist was federal agent Jack Bauer (actor Kiefer Sutherland) who belonged to an elite unit that helped prevent major terrorist attacks on the United States.

The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning show ran over 24 episodes of an hour each and had couch potatoes riveted to the box throughout the world. However, there's another Jack Bauer who has the cycling faithful's attention in New Zealand.

The 24-year-old Nelson rider is keeping a tight grip on the yellow jersey at the Tour of Southland.

The Share the Road team member yesterday kept his cool despite all the fuses rivals were lighting around him on Guy Fawkes Day during stage six of the tour.

He huffed and puffed his way up the gut-busting climb on the Crown Range, near Arrowtown, with two days of three-stage races to go. But today's 164km stage from Winton to Te Anau will have Bauer nervously looking over his shoulder at the Bissell Pro Cycling pair of Peter Latham and Jeremy Vennell of Hastings, who are 25 and 27 seconds behind him, respectively, today.

With the battle-weary pair of neither Beijing Olympian Latham nor world championship representative Vennell answering their cellphones last night, Placemakers' member Daniel Warren told SportToday the squally rain forecast today might prove to be strongman Bauer's undoing.

"Someone will have to have a crack at him soon," explained Warren, adding Bauer's teammate, Aucklander Matt Gilbert, had fallen away after he couldn't heck the pace.

"Someone like Jeremy Vennell will have to make a move on him tomorrow [today]," he said, adding that the course was "lumpy but has a 3km hill climb in the middle going into Te Anau".

Ironically, the terrorists most likely to pounce on Bauer are the American Bissell Pro four who will have enjoyed watching the leader's workhorse, Gilbert, wilt under pressure to leave them one shy after they were on an even keel of four riders each following the opening-day crash. Bissell's Ben Jacques-Mayne left for Australia on Tuesday to attend to family issues.

Bissell Pro, whose bulk of riders were based in Taradale before the tour, have bounced back to seize the second rung behind Zookeepers - Cycle Surgery defending a 15-second margin in the teams' general classification.

Bauer reportedly said: "I did not feel I had the ability to get up the hills and climb with the likes of Heath [Blackgrove, early leader] and Vennell so I am stoked."

But yesterday's stage bragging rights belonged to Team Enterprise rider Jeremy Yates, of Hawke's Bay Ramblers Cycling Club, who told PR man Ian Heppenstall he had to overcome some hurdles to make the start line and early in the race.

"This means a lot to me. I have had a lot harder road to get to this tour this year and so has the Enterprise team. It's been a difficult road the whole way through for a variety of reasons.

"The harder you have to work and the more you have to overcome then the sweeter it feels and we worked hard for this today," Yates said.

Latham revealed he initially intended to launch Vennell (pictured) for an attack on the Crown range but found himself in the break and sniffing victory before he became a spent force.

"We had eight of us and it quickly went down to four. It was a hard slog up the Devil's Staircase into that wind. We had a decent gap on to the climb but going up it the lights went out and I was just hanging by a thread."

With little between Bauer, Latham and Vennell it'll be interesting to see what mindset the Bissell Pro pair will be in to ambush the leader.

Latham, before this morning's stage seven, said they had two options (Vennell and himself) to protect the yellow jersey and take it off an "extremely strong rider who doesn't have that strong a team behind him".

"His team will start fading away and hopefully both of us will overtake him."

As professionals, Latham ruled out any personal agendas from Vennell or him that might jeopardise Bissell Pro's ultimate goal of yielding a tour winner.

It could all boil down to the last 24 hours tomorrow when the clock starts ticking down to nibble away at Bauer's 25-second lead.

The million-dollar question is: Will Jeremy Vennell become the first from Hawke's Bay to win the tour in its 53-year history?

Tick, tick, tick ...

* Results - page 12.