KEY POINTS:
New Zealand cycling's success at the Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney - winning eight of New Zealand's 21 medals so far - promises a confident future for the sport.
Coach and former Commonwealth Games medallist Mike McRedmond is delighted with his team's success and believes some individuals could
be medallists at the 2012 London Olympics.
In the first two days, gold medals went to Jason Christie in the individual pursuit and to Eddie Dawkins in the kilo time trial; silver to Sam Steele in the 10km scratch race; and bronzes to Shane Archbold in the pursuit and Dawkins in the sprint.
This was followed by a brilliant gold medal win to Archbold in the 25km points race, with Christie taking the bronze. Dawkins won bronze in the final of the keirin.
McRedmond believes the junior programmes put in place by BikeNZ in the past two to three years are starting to show benefits.
He said the first positive sign was the world junior title in the team pursuit two years ago - with those riders now in the elite programme and pushing for selection to next year's Beijing Olympics.
"This group has some equally talented riders. Our riders are of genuine international class," McRedmond said.
"These kids are harder and they have the mongrel. That's probably been missing from cycling for a while."
Friday's racing produced a mixed bag, with the team sprint trio crashing. The worst affected, Auckland's Myron Simpson, ignored a sore arm to qualify for the final of the points race along with Christie.
A medical examination later suggested his left forearm was probably broken and Simpson was taken to hospital.
But that was forgotten with a superb team performance in the points race.
They rode some key breaks before Christie and Archbold dominated the second half, with Archbold winning four sprints and Christie two.
New Zealand won another five bronze medals yesterday afternoon, three of them secured by rowers, through single scullers Odette Skeats, of Gisborne, and Jade Uru, of Invercargill, with the lightweight double of Timaru's Finian Scott and Christchurch's Adam Milne.
Invercargill shooter Jessica Scott won bronze in the women's trap, the same colour attained by the sailing team, who beat New South Wales 3-1 in the best-of-five match.
The New Zealand women's hockey team beat Great Britain 3-1 but lost out on the gold medal match on goal difference, going through to the bronze playoff today.
- NZPA