A year after playing a support role in teammate Ben Dyball’s win, the 20-year-old Sydneysider returned to claim the biggest result of his career.

Livingstone won the 115.9-kilometre opening stage from George Town to Grindelwald and also landed jerseys for leading the sprint, king of the mountains, young rider and general classifications. 

To complete a perfect day, he was even able to share the assorted achievements with his Mobius Future Racing teammate Angus Lyons who accompanied him on a three-man breakaway of nearly 100km and followed him across the finish line.

“I’m over the moon with that,” Livingstone said in a sun-drenched Grindelwald.

“I’ve just got a huge smile on my face and running on adrenalin so I think I’m going to crack soon.

“To get a win in a prestigious race like this is just fantastic.”

Livingstone, Lyons and fellow under-23 and the stage’s most aggressive rider Liam Magennis (NSWIS) took lengthy turns in their energy-sapping break through the North-East backroads before the Mobius duo grabbed control on the final climb.

Lyons looked to have established a decisive 100m lead but was caught at the crest by Livingstone and the pair worked together to reach the finish line 24 seconds ahead of Nicholas White (Oliver’s Real Food) who won the bunch sprint for third. 

“We were all pulling really long turns, just pushing harder and harder and when our lead got over four minutes I started thinking ‘we might get away with this’.

“I never felt we had it under control but in the last 5km I thought we could do it and fortunately the legs did not cramp up on the climb.”

Victorian Lyons said the pair had decided that he should head for home first.

“I’m usually a slightly better climber so we went for that but I was running out of legs so was glad when Peter came across,” he said.

“That was really hard. I thought we could take it all the way to the line and that’s what happened.”

Livingstone said he was looking forward to defending his yellow jersey as Wednesday’s 103.8km queen stage, which finishes on the grueling climb to Poatina, was where Dyball assumed the race lead last year.