SYDNEY - The New Zealand track team made a great start to their build-up to the Manchester Commonwealth Games by claiming seven medals, including four golds, at the Sydney leg of the World Cup circuit that ended last night.
Commonwealth Games individual pursuit champion Sarah Ulmer led the way with two
golds and a bronze and Greg Henderson and Hayden Roulston produced an amazing performance to win the madison by lapping the 10 other nations.
"We're all really happy considering no one peaked for this," Ulmer said.
New Zealand also qualified for the world championships in Denmark in September in the men's and women's individual pursuit, points races, men's teams pursuit and women's scratch race.
Henderson and Roulston made a break with 90 laps remaining of the 40km slog at the Dunc Gray Velodrome, got a lap up on the field and held off the minor placegetters, Australia and Holland.
"They did it the hard way, they were dominant," head coach Max Vertongen said.
Ulmer made no race of the women's 10km scratch race to secure her second gold following her emphatic win in the individual pursuit on Friday.
She made a decisive break with American Sarah Hammer and Cathy Moncassin of France, the trio managing to eliminate the other seven riders by lapping them halfway from home. Ulmer then streaked clear with five laps remaining to win with ease.
She added a bronze to her pair of golds yesterday by finishing third in the women's 20km points race.
She made a late surge, lapping the field and claiming three sprints to tally 25 points but could not reel in Hammer, who finished on 31 points, and Moncassin, on 27.
Fiona Carswell made a strong start but had a puncture with eight laps to go.
Justin Grace was ninth in the men's sprint and Matthew Sinton was seventh in the 1km time trial.
New Zealand won two golds on Saturday night.
The transtasman clash in the men's teams pursuit ended dramatically when the Australians, who were leading, crashed with 1250m of the 4000m race left.
New Zealand had qualified fastest for the final and were making inroads into Australian's early 2 seconds lead when Peter Dawson and Stephen Wooldridge touched wheels and crashed at 55km/h.
Coach Vertongen said he believed the quartet of Lee Vertongen, Henderson, Roulston and Matthew Randall would have won legitimately.
"They [Australia] were starting to blow big time. I was quite confident we would have beaten them. We were on a good schedule to come home strong; we had heaps of time to do it."
- NZPA
SYDNEY - The New Zealand track team made a great start to their build-up to the Manchester Commonwealth Games by claiming seven medals, including four golds, at the Sydney leg of the World Cup circuit that ended last night.
Commonwealth Games individual pursuit champion Sarah Ulmer led the way with two
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