Matthew Wilson has finally won the Tour of Southland. The Cambridge rider, second in each of the previous two editions, crossed the line on Gala Street in Invercargill on Saturday afternoon with the orange jersey safe and a winning margin of 1min 50sec.

Official results put Wilson's time for the week at 18hr 58min 35sec. Australian Levi Hone (Team Brennan) was second and also the best under-23 rider, Finnegan Murphy (Latitude) was third at 2min 8sec, and another Australian, Ben Dyball (Macaulay Ford-GoodTech), was fourth at 2min 19sec, one second ahead of Hone's teammate Julian Baudry.

The race was all but settled before lunch. Wilson, who rides for Advanced Personnel, started the day 1min 16sec ahead of Hone and Dyball and then won the 14km individual time trial at Winton in 17min 18sec. Baudry was one second slower and Invercargill's Marshall Erwood three seconds back in third. Hone lost 34 seconds and Dyball more than a minute, stretching the leader's cushion to 1min 50sec with only the run to Invercargill left.

That last stage, 77km on paper, was trimmed by about 14km because of a hazardous patch of gravel roadworks, the Southland Tribune reported. It came down to a bunch sprint beside Queens Park, won by George Jackson, of the Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project team, in 1hr 16min 22sec from PowerNet's Kiaan Watts and Australian Max Campbell. Wilson finished safely in the main group nine seconds later.

Wilson told the Tribune's Nathan Burdon he was delighted to "finally get the job done" after two near misses, adding that his team had given itself five years to win the race and had needed only four.

He said his hardest day was Thursday's leg to Lumsden, the longest of the week, when he came down with a cold and leaned on his teammates to get through. Wilson races gravel and mountain bikes professionally from a base in the United States, and said that while he had posted better results overseas, this was among the ones he was proudest of. For a New Zealand cyclist, he said, winning Southland was "a pretty big deal".

Wilson had finished second behind Josh Burnett both in 2024 and in the rescheduled race held in January. He took the lead this time on Wednesday's stage to the Remarkables and defended it on Friday's 150km stage from Invercargill to the top of Bluff Hill, where he was third.

That Bluff stage went to Palmerston North's Wilson Hannon (iBuilt), the last survivor of a breakaway that had been three minutes clear. Hannon finished in 3hr 19min 56sec, 14 seconds ahead of Jack Clark, with Wilson a further two seconds back. "That's just ridiculous. I'm shocked," Hannon said afterwards, according to the Tribune.

Jackson's win on Gala Street was his first stage victory in six Southland tours and it decided the Sprint Ace classification. He had led Campbell by a single point overnight and finished with 51 points to the Australian's 48.

Invercargill's Jeremy Presbury, a teammate of Jackson, won the King of the Mountains title with 56 points to 45 for PowerNet's Ollie Jones, and was the first Southlander home in sixth overall, 3min 10sec behind Wilson.

Team Brennan, on their first trip to Southland, took the teams classification by 2min 37sec from Macaulay Ford-GoodTech. Dyball, who once raced grand tours, kept the over-35 title he won in January.

This was the 70th edition of the tour, which has been going longer than any other multi-day cycle race in Australasia. It covered about 900km over seven days at an average speed the Tribune put at close to 50kmh, and 89 riders completed the final stage.

Wilson's first plan as champion was modest. He told the Tribune it had been a very long year, that he had been hanging on to form built earlier in the season, and that he was looking forward to a nap.