Cyclists on track to grab rich medal haul

Opinion

The track cycling team begin their pursuit of medals tonight, unburdened by the weight of expectation they carry.

It is on the velodrome that New Zealand is expected to reap its richest haul of medals. With established pursuiters and a burgeoning sprint programme, the team are poised to win up to 13 medals.

Their cause has been aided by the withdrawal of many of the leading riders in England, a move track coach Tim Carswell struggles to understand.

"It's pretty surprising, to be honest, given that at the Olympics [Britain] was the number one nation in the world," he said. "Given their massive budget, to send the team they have is [hard to understand].

"That's their choice, there's not much we can do about that."

The absence of the likes of Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton has left a big talent vacuum in the track cycling programme, but Carswell insisted there were still some extremely strong fields across the disciplines. Even so, with refreshing candour, he was bold enough to admit that New Zealand should be leading the medal charge.

"The Australians will be our biggest competition on the track, they've got an extremely strong team. Ourselves and Australia will be leading the charge in terms of track cycling," he said.

"We're really coming to this with a very similar approach we've had to the last two world championships. There's been a big change to the programme since the Olympic Games. At Beijing we had nine athletes, we've got 19 here.

"The whole programme has stepped up, we've got a lot more depth. It's not unusual for the athletes to go into a competition expecting to win."

The cycling programme starts at the Indira Gandhi Complex this afternoon with Eddie Dawkins favourite to win gold in the kilo time trial. He finished fifth in this year's world championships and his biggest threat is likely to come from Australia's Scott Sunderland and England's David Daniell, should he line up in the event.

Fellow New Zealander Ethan Mitchell could also be one to watch.

Also favoured to win on the opening day of the track are the two individual pursuiters, Jesse Sergent and Alison Shanks.

Feilding rider Sergent has signed a contract to race for Lance Armstrong's Radioshack team next year after two years with Trek-Livestrong.

Unlike Team Sky, most of whose riders have failed to show in Delhi, Sergent said there was no pressure for him to miss the Games. "I was always pretty confident I'd be here racing."

There was still plenty of motivation to race the individual pursuit despite its removal from the Olympic programme, he said. He finished second in this year's world champs at Copenhagen and wants to step one higher at next year's event.

However, he acknowledged that the team pursuit was now the priority. That event starts tomorrow with the final on Thursday.

While some riders have noticed a few bumps at the top of the track, there are no problems expected and Carswell has predicted some quick times.