Palmer wins penultimate stage

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Young Australian Jay McCarthy (Jayco-AIS) picked up a valuable time bonus in the sprint finish to secure himself the leader's jersey heading into tomorrow's final stage of the New Zealand Cycle Classic in Manawatu.

McCarthy's sprint for second on the stage 4 in Palmerston North enabled him to collect the time bonus he needed to steal the yellow jersey from fellow Australian Darren Lapthorne (Drapac).

The Jayco-AIS rider will take just a three-second lead into tomorrow's final stage, which will be a showdown between the two Australian teams.

"I've got a bit of a sprint on me, but sometimes in those big bunch kicks you can get a bit lost," McCarthy said. "But today everything went to plan. I followed the right wheels and it ended there, so it was awesome."

It was an aggressive day of racing that saw many attacks launched but none gained sufficient momentum to make the break stick.

"It was a big ride by the Jayco boys today. We had a couple of boys at 1.15 so the plan was to get them up the road and put the pressure on Drapac. They were there all the way with us."

Patrick Lane (Jayco-AIS), Ben Dyball (Genesys Wealth Advisors) and Shane Archbold (BikeNZ) managed to slip off the front with 20 miles to go in what looked like a potential race winning move.

Drapac, protecting the yellow jersey, lead the peloton which chased down the leaders and engulfed them with a kilometre to go.

Australian Thomas Palmer (Drapac) prevailed in the bunch sprint ahead of McCarthy and Taupo professional Patrick Bevin (Hudson Gavin Martin).

McCarthy has a slim three-second lead ahead of Lapthorne heading into the final stage on Sunday - a 111km circuit around the outskirts of Palmerston North.

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