Mountain Biking: Top-level Kiwi team target Rio

Big dreams often start in small places - just ask Rotorua's Sam Thompson.

Late last year Waiariki Academy of Sport high performance coach Thompson and local riders Carl Jones and Katie O'Neill tossed around an idea of making an international mountainbike team.

The dream became a reality when they attracted three of the best cross country riders in the country, including Rotorua's Dirk Peters and Amber Johnston and Queenstown's Kate Fluker.

With the help of some key sponsors, the New Zealand Cross Country Racing (NZXC) team was born, with the five-person team starting racing in January.

They have already started making a name for themselves domestically but left for Germany yesterday to compete in their first international races.

Team manager Thompson said they had one common goal. "Our goal is to get guys to the Olympics in 2016, and that starts four years out."

He said the sport was an individual sport but there were huge benefits in being part of the team.

"A lot of riders are just doing their own thing, so we got the best ones and made a team," he said.

"Basically we saw a need, New Zealand has a need for a team which can secure some support for the country's top riders."

With the riders part of a group, they would not have to worry about going out by themselves and securing sponsors to help them compete overseas.

Thompson said it took a lot of pressure off riders, making it beneficial for all involved.

"We are finding people are quite happy to jump on board and offer [NZXC] product but at the moment it is hard getting cash."

He said he hoped as the team gained more exposure it would become easier securing financial sponsorship.

The team start six weeks of international competition this week in Germany. They will compete in five sanctioned events and travel to the Czech Republic and Italy.

At present, cross country riding is the only mountainbike discipline offered at the Olympics.

For riders to make the 2016 Rio Olympics, they must first gain enough qualifying points through International Cycling Union (UCI) sanctioned events. No UCI events are offered in New Zealand for cross country riders, which means they must go overseas to qualify.

Thompson said BikeNZ allocated a very small amount of funds to mountainbike riders in New Zealand.