Tour Countdown: From competitor to first time tour director
“There is no way I could be doing this without the help of a large number of people.... “I’m not going to sit here and tell you I know everything."
The 2023 SBS Bank Tour of Southland will start on Sunday. In the lead-up to the event, The Tribune is running a series of Tour Countdown stories.
Glen Thomson’s relationship with New Zealand’s premier road cycling race stretches back a few decades now.
The 50-year-old recalls being allowed time off school as a 14-year-old to head out and follow the Tour of Southland as a spectator.
He went on to compete in it as a rider, “eight or nine times” he thinks.
Thomson has also taken on other roles in the tour, including as a team manager.
But he might just have taken on his biggest assignment yet when it comes to the SBS Bank Tour of Southland.
The 2023 Tour of Southland will be his first as the tour’s race director. It’s a pretty big deal given few have held the role since the race was first launched in 1956.
For 35 years Bruce Ross was in charge. Ross handed over the reins after the 2019 tour when he retired, and Sally Marr stepped in.
Now it’s Thomson’s turn.
It’s a job that extends well beyond the seven days of racing. The tasks are wide-ranging, from sorting sponsors to the safety requirements attached to sending a field of about 114 riders throughout Southland.
It could be a daunting assignment.
For Thomson, he points out he’s lucky with the support he has received in the lead-up to the 2023 Tour of Southland, which starts on Sunday.
“There is no way I could be doing this without the help of a large number of people. I don’t feel like I’m in charge telling people what to do.
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you I know everything, because I don’t.”
Included in the large group of helpers is Bruce Ross. He’s been on hand with his encyclopedic knowledge of the tour providing support for Thomson where needed.
“I talk to him daily; he is a really good mentor. He is pretty quick to let me know if I’ve missed something which is perfect.
“We go out and see community sponsors, and he’s come and done that with me. It’s fantastic because you roll in and they all know him and joke with him.
“He’s got a story that relates to them, he’s just a wealth of knowledge.”
“When I’m not with him, everyone is asking how Bruce is. They are all stoked when I tell them he is still helping me out.
“It’s a big ‘we’, it’s not just me. There are a lot of people helping out.”
Before getting involved in cycling administration he carved out an impressive cycling career himself on both the road and track. It included winning a Commonwealth Games gold medal in the points race in 1998 at Kuala Lumpur.
It was after missing out on a trip to the 1996 Olympic Games where he says he got a true understanding of the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes in cycling.
He had stopped riding for a bit and planned to head back to New Zealand from Belgium to ride the Tour of Southland.
He was set to line up for a team sponsored by Sycamore Print before deciding to pull out because he felt he hadn’t trained properly.
“I was asked to come down and manage the team [instead]. I thought, ‘That sounds like fun’, but far out it was hard.
“There was a lot to do, I thought, ‘shit, being a bike rider is easy.”
He got back on his bike after that tour as a manager and felt he became a much better rider as a result.
In fact, he rated the next couple of years after that as the best of his career.
“I think it was because doing that tour as a manager, you just realised how many other people were making things happen for you.
“I have to say I must have been quite a selfish bike rider. That opened my eyes a bit after it.”
Thomson has opted to retain the same Tour of Southland course used in recent years under former race director Sally Marr.
“What Sally has done is really good, especially drawing the stage back from Queenstown and going up the Remarkables, that does mean we don’t impact on Queenstown.
“We certainly didn’t think there was anything about the race that needed changed to make it better. We’ve driven the course and it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier.”
The 14km climb to the midway point of the Remarkables access road was one that was not just a defining point of the race, but could also be a defining point in a rider’s career, Thomson believes.
“It's a European-level climb. There’s a reason that guys who win that stage get interest from professional teams, because they can put their data across and say they are a proper climber.
So, what about Thomson’s personal stand out in terms of Tour of Southland’s to date?
He has cast his mind back to 2006 for his.
“My favorite one would have to be when [Hayden] Roulston won it when he made his comeback. It relaunched his career, and what a career.”
The 2023 SBS Bank Tour of Southland will start on Sunday with the usual 4.2km team time trial around Queens Park in Invercargill.
That will be followed by stage one, a 42km street race around Queens Park.
Additional reporting from Nathan Burdon.
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