After two Covid-affected years a strong 21-team field will assemble for this week’s SBS Bank Tour of Southland.

New Zealand cycling’s longest-running and most prestigious stage race welcomes back riders from across the country and the globe in 2023, something race director Sally Marr is excited and relieved about.

“The SBS Bank Tour of Southland isn’t just an iconic New Zealand bike race, riders tell stories about it around the world so it’s great that we are finally able to welcome everyone back in 2023,” Marr said.

“It has been a challenge for everyone concerned to keep this race going during the pandemic, so it will be great to have the racing front and centre again. This is a race which has developed plenty of resilience since it started in 1956 and I can’t wait to get started.

Defending champion Michael Vink returns to the south looking to win a fourth Southland title in the past five years.

The Cantabrian has been a commanding force since his breakthrough win in 2018 and will be supported by a strong Transport Engineering Southland-Deep South team.

A fourth win would see Vink draw level with Hayden Roulston’s four victories from 2006 to 2010, although it is still some way off Brian Fowler’s record eight crowns.

Much interest will focus on the impact of Australian team ARA Pro Racing Sunshine Coast, part of the Australian Cycling Academy’s not-for-profit development programme.

The team, which will be managed by former Tour de France rider Henk Vogels, is one of two UCI Continental teams competing in this year’s tour, along with the Creation Signs-MitoQ squad which has been the long-running project of Southlander James Canny.

That squad produced a successful campaign in the United States during the New Zealand winter and will again feature New Zealand representative George Jackson, outstanding Southland rider Josh Burnett, who won the Queen stage on debut at last year’s Tour of Southland, and Commonwealth Games silver medal-winning mountainbiker Ben Oliver.

The Share the Road-Macaulay Ford team features hard-hitting local Matt Zenovich, while former national road champion Joseph Cooper is riding for Central Benchmakers-Willbike.

Multisport athletes also feature in the peloton, including Coast to Coast combatants Sam Clark and Sam Manson.

Adding to the international flavour are United States-based Southlander Elliot Crowther, British rider Dan Gardner and Swiss teenager Robin Donze.

The 66th edition of the SBS Bank Tour of Southland gets underway on Sunday, October 30, with a 4.2km team time trial prologue and opening 42km stage, both contested around Invercargill’s Queens Park.

The first open road stage, a tough 166km journey from Invercargill to Lumsden, will again feature a gravel section, one of eight stages before the race finishes back in Invercargill on November 5.