Queenstown pro cyclist Reuben Thompson, who finished his European season with a second place in the Ronde de L’isard in France at the start of this month, credits the Tour of Southland for his career.
One team, in particular.
On Wednesday, the 66th Tour will roll into Queenstown — the brutal 108km fourth stage sees the 21-team field start in Mossburn and finish with a 6km grunt up The Remarkables access road.
Among the teams will be riders in bright orange and blue jerseys, representing Share the Road-Macaulay Ford, which, unbeknown to one of its major sponsors till recently, was Thompson’s initial inspiration.
Maureen Deuchrass, Road Safety Southland’s road user safety advisor, says part of her job during the tour is ‘‘geeing up all the kids in schools’’ as the tour riders pass them.
In Queenstown, the Tour used to finish, for a while, at the top of Coronet Peak.
There, the team introduced ‘‘Share the Road ambassadors’’, she says.
‘‘We grabbed two of the kids from local schools to come up to the finish line and wave the chequered flag.’’
‘‘Lo and behold’’, she says, one of those kids about a decade ago was Reuben Thompson.
Deuchrass says she’d just organised the Share the Road kit, and Thompson, about 11 at the time, remarked how much he’d like a set of riding gear.
Once she got back to Invercargill, she popped a jersey and a set of gloves in the post to his school.
Thompson, now 21, tells Mountain Scene he vividly recalls the day the jersey arrived and was given to him by his teacher.
‘‘I remember I wore it around school all day.
‘‘That was my first ever piece of proper road cycling kit.’’
At that stage a keen mountain biker, Thompson remembers pairing the jersey with his black swimming speedos, ‘‘’cos I figured my black speedos looked enough like a pair of bike shorts’’, and once he got into triathlon, aged 13, ‘‘I would have been wearing it almost every day’’.
It was only retired when Outside Sports gave him his first sponsorship deal, with a full kit.
The Share the Road jersey was then framed, and hung in his old bedroom.
Fast-forward to 2020 and Thompson, then 19, came out of a quarantine hotel the day before the Tour of Southland, and had a blinder on the fourth stage, winning The Remarkables leg.
For Thompson, it still rates as ‘‘one of the coolest days I’ve had on the bike’’, made even more special by having his grandparents and parents there to cheer him on, following what had been a tough, and lonely, European season.
He came to Deuchrass’ attention again after she watched an interview following his win, during which he mentioned the jersey he’d been given, which got him into cycling.
It was ‘‘just beautiful’’, she says.
‘‘I burst into tears when I met him after reading his story and him saying ‘it was when Share the Road came’.’’
Citing it among her favourite moments on the Tour, she says the impact her team and the Tour of Southland had on Thompson is ‘‘unbelievable’’.
‘‘Now look what he’s doing.’’
Following a consistent, but somewhat disappointing season in Europe for his Groupama-FDJ Continental team, during which he was whiskers away from bagging the yellow jersey on several occasions, Thompson will step up into the WorldTour team in Europe next year.
At this stage, he’s expecting his season to start in Australia in early January, and while he won’t be lining up in this year’s Tour of Southland,
he’ll be keeping a close eye on his favourite leg.
‘‘When I was younger, I thought the Tour of Southland was like the Tour de France, I remember every year watching it come through Queenstown … so I’ll be up the hill to watch the race come through.’’
The first riders are expected to cross the finish line up The Remarks about 1.20pm on Wednesday.
