Armstrong powers to time trial victory

Kristin Armstrong (USA National Team) won the opening stage of the Women's Tour of New Zealand, a 7.1km individual time trial conducted in rainy conditions on the grounds of Massey University. Armstrong, twice the world time trial champion and the reigning Olympic time trial champion, stopped the clock in 10:15 for the technical course, 17 seconds faster than runner-up and current US time trial champion Evelyn Stevens, Armstrong's teammate on the USA National Team.

Current world time trial champion Judith Arndt (GreenEdge-AIS) finished fractions of a second slower than Stevens for third place. Arndt's teammates Linda Villumsen, the 2011 time trial world championships silver medalist, and Shara Gillow, the current Australian time trial champion, followed in fourth and fifth place, 22 seconds and 28 seconds back respectively, setting up a general classification battle between the US National Team and GreenEdge-AIS over the following four stages.

"There are a lot of great teams here and we have GreenEdge behind us in 3rd and 4th," said Armstrong. "There are four days left to go and we have our work cut for us."

"Armstrong may be 18 seconds in front of us, but we have numbers up there to play with now," said Gillow. "Coming into the stage tomorrow we haven't lost too much time, and our numbers give us options. We’re a strong team up against some really good international riders, so having three us up there is definitely a good start."

The riders will likely face wet conditions again for stage 2 on Thursday, a 137km loop through Ashurst, starting and finishing in Palmerston North.