Arndt nails stage and overall

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HTC-Highroad's evergreen veterans Judith Arndt, Amber Neben and Ina Teutenberg took the Women's Tour of New Zealand by the horns this afternoon in Masterton, winning the stage, the sprinter's jersey and the bunch sprint respectively in a dominant performance from the squad.

Arndt and Neben made it to the stage-winning breakaway that held on to record another victory for the outfit, which enjoyed success at the Women's Tour of Qatar with Ellen Van Dijk, who took out the overall title while the team won the teams classification.

"It was incredible team work out there," said new HTC-Highroad recruit Ally Stacher, who made her debut for the American team today. "We all stuck to our jobs and we were in all the breaks. We shut everything down.

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"Amber Neben has the sprinter's jersey and Judith Arndt won the stage after Amber led her out in the final 900 metres before Judith pinned it with 200 metres remaining," she explained.

Stacher said they key to the team's performance was the balanced squad directeur sportif Ronny Lauke has brought to the race, with the young American and her countrywoman Amanda Miller plus Australian speedster Chloe Hosking doing the lion's share of the work to ensure the team's tactics played out to perfection.

Miller also animated proceedings during the stage, attacking after 45km in a move that was eventually reeled in but set the tone of what was to come from the team.

"I was at the front a lot of the day with Chloe Hosking and Amanda Miller and we stuck together for a lot of the stage, working for the team," said Stacher. "We finished in the second group, behind Amber and Judith, and Ina [Teutenberg] won the bunch sprint."

The five-day event, which features four stages and two criteriums, kicked off with a testing parcours over 98km that suited Arndt well; the decorated German made the most of the hilly course to secure a vital initial win.

"The course was more rolling than I had expected after looking at the profile and there were two decent climbs. The climb to the KOM was pretty steep and brutal," said Stacher.