Cycling: Kiwi women pursuiters strike gold at World Cup

Alison Shanks. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The New Zealand women's pursuit team flexed their muscles by winning the final at the second round of the World Cup series in Colombia yesterday.

Alison Shanks, Lauren Ellis and Rushlee Buchanan, who are being groomed for the 2012 London Olympics, beat a full strength United States team in a superb performance in the final in Cali.

It was a double medal night for New Zealand with the sprinters grabbing the bronze medal in the men's team sprint, outlasting Poland in the ride-off and establishing a new best time in the process.

It was a strong message from the team on the day that BikeNZ received an increase in funding from national sports funding agency Sparc for their campaign through to the London Olympics.

Behind by more than half a second after the first kilometre of the 3000m final, the women's pursuit team put in a sizzling second kilometre of 1min 0.5sec and then clocked the final kilometre in 1min 0.6sec to blow the Americans away.

National women's coach Dayle Cheatley was enthusiastic about the performances from the same combination that won bronze at the world championships and set a world record in the process.

"While the ride for the world record at the world championships was special, I would rate today as our best team pursuiting performance in that we executed the qualifying really well to get into the gold medal ride and we came out to produce a pretty well perfect ride in the final.

"They rode really tight and in good formation in the final. I wasn't surprised that they would turn out and have a good ride tonight even though only one of them rode at the Melbourne World Cup.

"But to be only around half a second off the world record at this time of year is pretty encouraging."

Cheatley said he was not concerned with the fast start made by the Americans.

"From lap five they started to pick them up and in the end we cracked them and just about had them in the same straight at the finish.

"We are sitting really well. There were 21 nations here , the biggest field ever for a women's pursuit.

"While we are progressing well there are a lot of teams coming up like the Germans, Canadians and Lithuania, as well as Australia, USA and Great Britain."

The team topped the qualifiers in 3min 23.132sec but went a superb 3min 22.202sec in the final, only th off their world record, which was set in beating off the Americans for the bronze medal at this year's world championships in Copenhagen.

The Americans, led by individual pursuit world record holder Sarah Hammer, were just under a second slower than New Zealand in qualifying, while world silver medallists Great Britain beat Germany for the bronze medal.

The New Zealand sprint trio of teenagers Ethan Mitchell and Sam Websterand 21-year-old Eddie Dawkins picked up their second straight medal, winning bronze in the team pursuit.

Timaru's Shane Archbold is in seventh place after the first three events in the six-race omnium.

- NZPA