Matthew Wilson has taken control of the Tour of Southland's 70th edition after winning the race's toughest day, the 108km fourth stage from Mossburn to the top of the Remarkables access road.

The 25-year-old Advanced Personnel rider crossed the line on Wednesday 42 seconds ahead of Ben Dyball of Macaulay Ford-GoodTech, with Latitude's Finnegan Murphy third at 52 seconds, according to the official results. The win and a 10-second time bonus lifted Wilson into the orange jersey with an overall lead of 1min 1sec over Dyball and 1min 10sec over Australian Levi Hone.

Wilson has twice finished second in the tour to Josh Burnett, losing by under a dozen seconds last year. Burnett is not racing this time and is following the race in a team vehicle. Race organisers quoted Wilson saying the team's aim had always been to win the tour outright, and that he fancied his chances on Saturday's Bluff Hill finish.

Southlander Jeremy Presbury of the Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project began the day leading by a single second after Tuesday's stage into Te Anau, which was won by PowerNet's Kiaan Watts. Presbury finished ninth on the climb and now sits 1min 31sec back, although he still leads the King of the Mountains standings. He told organisers his team would be hoping for wind and chaos in the stages to come.

The racing before the climb was shaped by Max Campbell of Macaulay Ford-GoodTech, who spent much of the day in a breakaway with Hamish Keast and Dan Morton before the bunch reeled them in at the foot of the 6km ascent. Campbell leads the sprint competition and was named the stage's most combative rider. Hone, who was fourth on the stage, leads the under-23 classification, Dyball heads the over-35s and Team Brennan leads the teams race.

Among those in the peloton is Invercargill's Nick Kergozou, back on the bike after a velodrome training crash in July that fractured his back in three places and ended his Glasgow Commonwealth Games campaign. He told 1News he had already hit the deck once this week, coming off at about 55km/h after the opening team time trial around Queens Park, and that the fall brought back memories of the earlier crash. He described the week as harder than anything in club racing.

Thursday's fifth stage is the longest of the tour, a 178.5km leg from Invercargill to Lumsden. Friday brings the stage from Invercargill to Bluff, before the tour wraps up on Saturday with a time trial and road stage based around Winton and a final stage in Invercargill.

The tour, first held in 1956, was postponed from its usual November slot last year because of the October 2025 state of emergency and was raced in January instead, so this is the second edition in 2026.