Gisborne’s Ney wins Canadian national cycling champs

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Former Gisborne Boys’ High School student Matthew Ney stunned Canadian cycling officials by winning the Canadian national under-19 individual time trial (ITT) by 0.10 of a second.

Last year the Year 12 student returned to Canada to complete his schooling and to pursue his cycling career.

As a newcomer to the Canadian system he was classed as an unranked rider for the ITT event so was required to be one of the first of the 46 riders on the 29-kilometre course in Edmonton.

Being unranked has a distinct disadvantage, as the faster and higher-ranked riders set off last in regular intervals and are aware of the fastest time set by earlier riders.

Ney, 18, raced around the course in 36 minutes 33.3 seconds, averaging a little over 48km an hour. This had him sitting on the fastest finisher’s throne much sooner than officials were expecting.

The fastest-ranked competitors did not ride until the last part of the event, so Ney had a long wait as each rider headed to the finish line with time splits regularly posted.

When the fourth-last rider crossed the line one tenth of a second slower than Ney, officials worked through results and verified each time split before confirming Ney was still the leader. No one got closer than that, and eventually Ney was confirmed as the u19 national champion.

The result is even more remarkable as the night before Ney travelled to the competition he was still sourcing parts to build his bicycle. The race was the first time on a new set-up.

The following day Ney reinforced his claim as a cyclist to watch by finishing eighth in a sprint finish for third in the 130km road race.

These results make Ney a strong contender for the Canadian team for the u19 world championships in Scotland this year.

In October last year, Matthew and his elder brother Caleb, 20, were added to the Red Truck Racing roster for the 2023 season.

• Josiah Ney, eldest of the three Ney brothers, finished 10th of 46 starters in the elite men’s race in the Americas Triathlon Cup Montreal at the weekend.

His time for the 778-metre swim, 20.2km bike ride and 5km run was 52 minutes 57 seconds.

Josiah, 23, took nine minutes 15 seconds for the swim, 27:38 for the bike and 15:08 for the run. His two transitions each took 28 seconds.

The Ney family moved from Canada to New Zealand in 2015 for a change in lifestyle.

Mother Kate was with Sport Gisborne Tairāwhiti, working with primary teachers on the delivery of physical education (PE) and how to teach youngsters values through PE, while father Patrick was a doctor working in general practice. The family returned to Canada last year.