‘Perfect start with the team’ - Finn Fisher-Black hits Tour Down Under podium target, reaches for more

New Zealand's Finn Fisher-Black of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at the 2025 Tour Down Under
New Zealand's Finn Fisher-Black of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at the 2025 Tour Down Under

Finn Fisher-Black ended his first race with his new Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team on Sunday, and despite not pulling off an audacious bid to try and move another notch up the GC ranks, the rider from New Zealand confirmed "we delivered on everything" related to overall objectives. 

For a start, the team’s sprinter, Sam Welsford, just cleaned up his third stage win of the Tour. For himself, Fisher-Black put himself up to third overall with a massive surge on Willunga Hill on Saturday. 

“The meeting before the race was to go for a podium in GC and stage wins with Sam so I think we can be really happy with the week,” said Fisher-Black. “We delivered on everything we set out to do so I'm super happy, a perfect start with the team.”

“I thought a second was maybe in reach. I think the win was pretty far gone, unless I really pulled out a ride. But I gave it a go to try and get some seconds, to get away from the bunch and bridge across to the breakaway on the second sprint,” said Fisher-Black. 

If he’d done so, the three-second time bonus that goes to the intermediate sprint winner could have been in reach. 

“But the gap was just too big,” said the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider, who was tackling his third Tour Down Under. ”We didn't want to close it [the gap]  too much, because it would open the race too much so we brought it down to 20 seconds, and then I tried to jump.

“Gave it a go and couldn't quite do it, so has to be third.”

Simone Giuliani
Australia Editor

Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.