TRACK CYCLING

Plenty at stake as action heats up in team battles

By Cycling New Zealand

With places in the team for the World Championship decided tomorrow, the action was hot in qualifying for the team pursuit on the final morning of the Skoda Track Cycling National Championships at the Avantidrome in Cambridge.



Rushlee Buchanan leads the Waikato Bay of Plenty combination to top qualifying spot in the women’s team pursuit at the Avantidrome in Cambridge.  Credit: Dianne Manson.


Southland prevailed with the fastest time of 4:10.371, in the quartet of Cam Karwowski, Piet Bulling, Liam Aitcheson and Nick Kergozou, with a smooth, fast-finishing performance.

The East Coast North Island combination of double Olympian Westley Gough, his cousin Regan, his fellow junior world champion teammate Luke Mudgway and Reon Sheath went out quickly and were still up with 500m to ride, eventually finishing just 4/100ths of a second behind to set up a mouth-watering rematch tonight.

It was the same in the men’s team sprint where Auckland, with Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Zac Williams) clocked the fastest time of 44.839 to be 0.1s faster than defending champions Southland with Jeremy Presbury, Matt Archibald and Eddie Dawkins.

Their final will be a cracker tonight as Auckland look to take the title off Southland.

Waikato Bay of Plenty were too classy in qualifying for the women’s team pursuit with the combination of Rushlee Buchanan, Racquel Sheath, Jaime Nielsen clocking 4:37.08 and will ride off against Auckland for the gold medal tonight.

The international Southland combination of Stephanie Mckenzie and Natasha Hansen topped qualifiers in the women’s team sprint in 34.42 and will take on the Canterbury pairing of Kate Shearer and Gemma Payne for the gold medal tonight.

Tomorrow morning Cycling New Zealand will name the team for this month’s UCI Track Cycling World Championships.