Commonwealth Games: Our gold rush

New Zealand riders Tom Scully and Aaron Gate celebrate with gold and bronze after the men's 40km points race. Photo / Greg Bowker

Inspirational work by track cyclists wins another four medals.

About an hour after Tom Scully and Aaron Gate rounded out a cracking day at the velodrome for New Zealand, a vivid rainbow stretched out across the Chris Hoy arena.

How appropriate, as New Zealand's marvellous track cycling campaign continued with another four medals yesterday.

Southlander Scully won the 40km points race, with Gate taking the bronze, the pair separated by Isle of Man rider and Olympic team pursuit gold medallist, Peter Kennaugh, the Manxman winning the Isle's first medal of the Games.

That followed silver and bronze medals for Simon van Velthooven and Matt Archibald in the kilo time trial, behind defending Games champion, Australian Scott Sunderland.

All three went under Sunderland's previous Games record. It was a special event, but the performance by the points race team, which included Shane Archbold, perhaps exceeded it.

Archbold did the donkey work and finished ninth but the other two knew his value and were unstinting in their praise for his efforts.

Scully's career hung in the balance in 2010 when he crashed into a lamp-post riding in the Ras Tour of Ireland. It took a year to recover, but how he's made up for it.

He has a successful pro road career and now, in the sort of language cycling high performance bosses cannot argue with, demonstrated his high class yesterday.

Scully, who picked up good early points in the 160-lapper, and didn't relent, reckoned any of the three could have won it. There was no plan for the others to fill support roles.

"If we put all our eggs in one basket we'd be crazy. We rode smart as a team," Scully said.

There was also just a hint of, if not relief, then satisfaction after the team pursuiters fell short of their expectations in finishing with a silver earlier in the meeting.

But while Scully took the kudos, spare a thought for Gate.

Injury rubbed last year's world omnium champion out of the team pursuit, although he said yesterday he could have ridden if needed.

"I definitely wasn't 100 per cent [for the team pursuit] but knew I'd have enough in the tank. It was a bit risky, I wasn't quite going as good as the others in training."

And so there was special delight for the 23-year-old that he had made a contribution.

"To see the endurance boys get one back on the sprint boys with a gold, that's pretty cool," Gate laughed.

"To see Rhino [van Velthooven] and Matt up there [on the podium] just before us was pretty motivating."

Gate appreciates New Zealand's Games history. He remembers watching riders like veteran Greg Henderson in past Commonwealth Games.

"One of the things I'd always try and do was stay up to watch them as a kid. To be doing it myself is pretty cool and I hope it inspires others to do the same thing."

Indeed the whole New Zealand track programme is a pretty inspiring operation.