Cycling: BikeNZ target a gold rush

Eddie Dawkins. Photo / Getty Images

Bikenz have promised a medal haul at this year's Commonwealth Games in Delhi but their main priority remains the 2012 London Olympics.

New Zealand yesterday added a third medal from the world track cycling championships with a bronze in the men's team pursuit to equal their best haul at a world championships, set in Poland last year.

It came on top of the silver won by Jesse Sergent in Friday's men's individual pursuit and the bronze collected by the women's team pursuit squad, who also set a world record in their bronze medal ride-off with the United States.

The pursuit riders were expected to do well after establishing themselves among the world's best but the rapid development of the sprint team has taken everyone by surprise.

Invercargill sprinter Eddie Dawkins, still just 20, finished fifth in the kilo time trial yesterday. He broke his own New Zealand record in the process - setting a time of 1:01.327 - improved on his 10th from last year and was also the best-placed finisher of the Commonwealth riders.

It came on top of his fifth in Thursday's team sprint, the first time the young New Zealand squad had raced at a world championships, while on Friday, Sam Webster, 19, finished sixth in the kieran.

BikeNZ high performance director Mark Elliott said they were extremely encouraged by how the team had performed at the worlds in Copenhagen.

"There's going to be some action from New Zealand in Delhi, for sure," Elliott said.

"But the main thing is making sure we make steps to London, because that's our main objective. We wanted to win medals at the world championships, which we have done. We also wanted to benchmark our sprinters against the rest of the world.

"From a sprinting perspective, there's huge potential there. The average age of the sprint riders is 20 and they have exceeded our expectations up to now."

The men's pursuit team of Sergent, Sam Bewley, Peter Latham and Wes Gough overcame a mechanical problem to clock 3:59.475 and beat hosts Denmark for the bronze.

Sergent punctured with three laps remaining, just as he was about to take over a lap from Bewley, causing confusion within the team. But they recovered with the three remaining riders to get to the line first.

While happy with another medal, the pursuiters were bitterly disappointed not to qualify for the gold-medal ride. They had the fastest time 3000m into the 4000m qualifying ride, only to drop away in the final laps after dropping Bewley.

The pursuit team have shown great promise for the past four years without consistently challenging for gold at world championship level.

"That's the challenge," Elliott says. "We will have to reflect on that over the next few weeks, look at their progress and work out how to make the gains needed. We believe they can do it."

Dawkins, who is known as the Whopper, has clearly established himself as the leader of the sprint team and rider of the future.

He was delighted with his performances and hopeful of a good result in his favourite event, the individual sprint, raced overnight.

"I would have loved a medal [in the kilo] but I am still really young in this sport," he says.

"I am concentrating more on sprints right now than the kilo so this was great and gives me so much confidence for tomorrow.

"Our whole sprint team have done well so far. Our coach Justin Grace has set goals for us and we keep exceeding them so he has to keep re-evaluating right now.

"I think we have raised a few eyebrows this week. New Zealand is not turning up at sprints just to fill in the spots now. We are genuine contenders."