During the holidays Eli Moir and his parents made the trip to Southland for the 43rd Annual Yunca Junior Tour of Southland.

The event started with the race briefing followed by a pasta party at ILT Stadium Southland.  Eli was lucky enough to win a spot prize to start the weekend!

The 137 riders were greeted with blustery wind and torrential sideways rain for the first stage on Friday at the Teretonga motor racing circuit. Riders faced an individual time trial for Stage 1 followed by 10 laps for Stage 2 in a Kermesse. Eli held on with the bunch for nine laps before being dropped on the last lap.

Day 2 involved two stages based at Te Tipua school, thankfully with better weather. Stage 3 was the ‘Beast of the East’ with quite a hilly loop ridden three times. Stage 4 was the ‘Newvale circuit’ with Eli hanging on for as long as he could.

The last day dawned with beautiful weather in Southland, where we were based at Waianawa for the longest stage of 86km. Eli had a much better race and stayed comfortably in the bunch, even doing some turns on the front. The last stage was a hectic 6 laps around the Yunca showroom in Invercargill for the Criterium, where he stayed with the other boys to finish in the bunch again.

There was a large squad of riders from the Australian cycling road development academy, who were pretty hard to beat.

It was a valuable experience with lots of learning and new friends made.