North Harbour's Ben Parks holds a narrow lead in the under-19 men's section of the Junior Tour of Southland after the first two stages yesterday.
Parks leads Australian Jack McCulloch from the Racing Kangaroos by three seconds with junior world track championship representative Dylan Kennett a further second back.
Te Awamutu's Julia Main has a 12sec advantage in the under-19 women's section after the completion of two of the six stages.
Australian riders Jack Edwards and Josie Talbot lead the under-17 boys and girls categories, as do Samuel Jenner and Hollee Simons in the under 15 grade.
Cycling Southland riders Fletcher Sharman and Nicole Shields lead the under-13 boys and girls sections.
The junior tour takes in the Beast of the East and New Vale circuits around Te Tipua today before finishing with two stages tomorrow.
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Meanwhile, BikeNZ have taken their first steps towards the London Olympic track cycling campaign with a training camp in Invercargill.
The 29-strong group are split into three squads – men's endurance, women's endurance and sprint squads – and will come in and out of the camp at various stages over the next two weeks.
The camp is focusing on testing the individual riders, both in sports science and technology over a range of differing training loads.
The endurance squads will contest the New Zealand Omnium Championships on October 18 and 19 as part of the camp.
This initial camp includes World Tour riders Jesse Sergent and Sam Bewley from Radioshack, and fellow professional Hayden Roulston, who is making his first appearance back on the track since his double medalling winning efforts at the Beijing Olympics.
The real heat will go on the riders in the next camp in November which precedes the Oceania Championships in Invercargill, where important Olympic qualifying points will be available for some categories.
Following the championships BikeNZ will then select squads to compete in three UCI World Cups in Astana, Cali and Beijing in December and January ahead of the test event in London.
The riders to take part in the first BikeNZ camp are:
Sprint squad: Sam Webster, Eddie Dawkins, Ethan Mitchell, Simon van Velthooven, Matt Archibald, Nathan Seddon, Natasha Hansen, Stephanie McKenzie, Katie Schofield.
Men's endurance: Jesse Sergent, Sam Bewley, Wes Gough, Marc Ryan, Hayden Roulston, Pete Latham, Aaron Gate, Shane Archbold, Tom Scully, Cameron Karwowski, Jason Allen, Myron Simpson.
Women's endurance: Alison Shanks, Jo Kiesanowski, Kaytee Boyd, Jaime Nielsen, Lauren Ellis, Gemma Dudley, Rushlee Buchanan, Sequoia Cooper.
Story courtesy of The Southland Times