Cycling: Kiwi grabs gold at World Cup meet

Southland cyclist Eddie Dawkins won gold in the men’s sprint at the track World Cup round in Beijing last night. Photo / Getty Images

Big Southland sprinter Eddie Dawkins produced a golden finish for the New Zealand cycling team at track World Cup round in Beijing last night.

Dawkins won the men's sprint in an emphatic display, taking out his quarterfinal, semifinal and final for an unbeaten run at the Olympic velodrome.

The New Zealand squad grabbed three medals on the final night with the women's pursuit team winning a silver medal against Australia and outstanding prospects Tom Scully and Myron Simpson grabbed a bronze in the final of the Madison.

It completed an excellent meet for the largely development team with seven medals and a fourth from 10 events.

The icing on the cake came with the gold medal to Dawkins who produced a mixture of power, speed and outstanding tactics.

He qualified fifth fastest with a superb 10.391 before knocking off kilo time trial gold medallist Miao Shang of China in two straight rides in the quarterfinal.

Dawkins was impressive in accounting for France's Maximillian Levy in the semifinal, again in two straight before dominating the final against another Frenchman, Michael D'Almeida, the second qualifier, in two rides.

The women's combination of world champion Alison Shanks, Lauren Ellis and Rushlee Buchanan topped the qualifiers with a sharp three minutes 25.727 seconds from Australia's 3min 26.218sec to move into the gold medal ride.

Cambridge rider Jaime Nielsen provided the fresh legs for the gold medal ride along with Ellis and Shanks as New Zealand took the battle to an Australian combination in their first World Cup final.

The Kiwis found themselves 1.3 seconds down after a flying first kilo by the Australians and while the New Zealanders came back with faster times over the second and third kilometres, they could not bridge the gap.

While New Zealand clocked a best time of 3min 23.747sec, faster than their silver medal effort in last year's world championships, they finished 0.9s behind the Australians who recorded an outstanding 3min 22.879sec, only fractionally outside Britain's winning time at the worlds.

Earlier Invercargill's Scully completed an outstanding meet winning his third medal in tandem with fellow national champion team-mate Simpson to take bronze in the 40km Madison.

The pair cruised to win their qualifying heat earlier in the day and were the most consistent pairing in the final, gaining points on six of the eight sprints.

The Hong Kong combination skipped clear to put a lap on the field to guarantee them overall victory with Italy on 18 points in second, just two in front of New Zealand.

Scully took the bronze in the points race on the opening night and came into the team pursuit as fresh legs for Hayden Godfrey in their bronze medal ride.

The other medals at the World Cup comprised a gold for world champion Shanks in the individual pursuit and a silver for Godfrey in the scratch race.

The squad returns to New Zealand with riders to prepare for the national track championships in Invercargill next month, which double as the Commonwealth Games Trials.

- NZPA