TRACK CYCLING

Gold medal for Men'sTeam Pursuit

By Cycling New Zealand

The fresh face of youth grabbed a slice of history for Cycling New Zealand, with a gold medal in the men’s 4000m team pursuit to highlight the second day of the UCI Track World Championships in Paris.

It's the first time in its history that New Zealand has won the team pursuit gold medal, edging out Great Britain in a thrilling final by half a second. The previous best were bronze medals in 2009, 2010, 2012 and last year.

With double Olympian Marc Ryan carrying a niggling back injury, endurance coach Tim Carswell opted to bring in 18 year old rookie Regan Gough for the gold medal ride, with the winning quartet sporting an average age of just 20 years.

Earlier big Southland sprinter Eddie Dawkins gained some compensation for the team sprint relegation yesterday, claiming a silver medal in the final of the keirin behind five-time world champion Francois Pervis.

The women’s team pursuit, who returned to the high performance programme late last year, set best times in each of their three rides, finishing fourth overall, while Otago’s Katie Schofield bagged a personal best to finish 12th in the 500m time trial.

The men’s team pursuit combination of Dylan Kennett, Pieter Bulling, Ryan and Alex Frame earned their place in the gold medal ride after disposing of Switzerland in their semifinal, where they established another best time of 3:56.198. This set up a final showdown with the much fancied Great Britain line-up.

Carswell rolled the dice to bring in Gough, who withdrew after five laps in the scratch race that preceded the team pursuit final.

The New Zealanders went up early before the British fought back to take a slender advantage before dropping a rider. With the Kiwis dropped to three riders also and when Frame slipped off the back, it looked if the British would prevail. But their third counting rider also dropped back as the young Cantabrian pushed hard for the line, finishing only a length behind his teammates.

They won in an astonishing 3:54.088, starting with a 1:03 for the first kilometre and following with splits of 56 seconds, 57 and 57 to smash the national record by more than a second and finish half a second ahead of the Brits.

“For such a young team, they outdid themselves over the last two days, it’s unbelievable how well they raced,” said Carswell.

“Regan has trained well and it was great to bring in fresh legs. It was a massive step up for him. His previous best in a team pursuit was 4m06s, so to go 3:54 was incredible and he was superb in the ride.

“They are really young so we know they are going to get stronger over the next 18 months to Rio and we are lucky with the overall strength of the programme at the moment which is pretty exciting.”

The other medal fell to Dawkins who had looked in imposing form throughout the day in the men’s keirin, winning his semifinal with a powerful burst.

Originally hoping to dominate from the front, Dawkins stayed on the inside behind the leader in the final and despite finding an opening around the final bend, he ran out of real estate to catch flying Frenchman Pervis.

“I am over the moon. It’s only the second time I’ve been in the final of the keirin but the first time I’ve been competitive. Especially for an Olympic discipline, it’s huge for me and huge for the programme.

“I was moody last night and this morning, but this has made up for that result yesterday. Scars do heal but they still leave a mark. There is definitely unfinished business for that team sprint next year and on to Rio.”

The women’s quartet of Rushlee Buchanan, Lauren Ellis, Jaime Nielsen and Georgia Williams could not match the favoured Australian combination in their 4000m team pursuit semifinal, but a new best time of 4:22.954 was fast enough to earn a ride against Canada for the bronze.

Coach Craig Palmer brought in fresh legs with omnium specialist Racquel Sheath which added some impetus as then went faster again, but could not match the speed of the Canadians.

However they continued their summer-long improvement, taking some seven seconds off their previous best time, while recognising the bar has been raised by Australia, who smashed the world record in 4:13.683 in the final.

“We are happy to be back in the programme and with our performances this week and we are still motivated but there’s a lot of work to do.

“We are excited to go faster in every ride but the Aussies proved the bar is getting higher and we are excited to see what we can do, go home and come up with some crazy ideas.”

Schofield produced a tidy ride to clock 34.595 in the 500m time trial, a significant personal best and only 15/100ths outside the national record for 12th place, while national record holder McKenzie managed 14th.

Tomorrow is another busy day for New Zealand with Simon van Velthooven and Matt Archibald in the 1000m time trial; Aaron Gate in the first day of the omnium, McKenzie in the sprint, Nielsen and Williams in the individual pursuit and Regan Gough in the 40km points race.

Day 2 results:

Men’s 4000m team pursuit, semifinal: New Zealand (Dylan Kennett, Pieter Bulling, Marc Ryan, Alex Frame) 3:56.198, 1; Switzerland 3:57.505, 2. Semifinal 2: Great Britain 3:55.207, 1; Germany 3:57.116, 2.

Other first round: Australia 3:55.314, 1; France 3:58.616, 2; Russia 3:57.181, 1; Netherlands 3:58.230, 2.

Gold medal ride: New Zealand (Kennett, Bulling, Regan Gough, Frame) 3:54.088, 1; Great Britain 3:54.687, 2. Bronze medal: Australia 3, Germany 3 (over-lapped)

Women’s 4000m team pursuit, semifinal 1: Australia 4:17.410, 1; New Zealand (Rushlee Buchanan, Lauren Ellis, Jaime Nielsen, Georgia Williams) 4:22.954, 2. Semifinal 2: Great Britain 4:16.979, 1; Canada 4:17.799, 2.

Gold medal: Australia 4:13.683, 1 (World Record); Great Britain 4:16.702, 2. Bronze medal: Canada 4:17.864, 3; New Zealand (Buchanan, Ellis, Racquel Sheath, Nielsen) 4:22.706, 4.

Men’s Keirin final: Francois Pervis (FRA) 1, Eddie Dawkins (NZL) 2, Aziz Awang (MAS) 3, Maximilian Levy (GER) 4, Nikita Shurshin (RUS) 5, Sam Webster (NZL) 6.

Semifinal 1: Shurshin 1, Levy 2, Webster 3. Semifinal 2: Dawkins 1, Pervis 2, Awang 3.

Women 500m time trial: Anastasia Voynova (RUS) 33.149, 1; Anna Meares (AUS) 33.425, 2; Miriam Welte (GER) 33.699, 3. Also: Katie Schofield (NZL) 34.595, 12; Stephanie Mckenzie (NZL) 34.722, 14.

Caption: The men’s team pursuit sport the rainbow jerseys of world champions Photo credit: Guy Swarbrick/Cycling New Zealand.

Watch the gold medal ride here.

Details: www.cyclingnewzealand.co.nz or www.uci.ch