Cycling: Men riding off for bronze as women misfire

The New Zealand men's team pursuit squad will ride off for the bronze medal at the UCI track cycling World Cup in London but the highly-rated women's team misfired badly in their qualifying ride to finish sixth.

The New Zealand line-up, without leading rider Jesse Sergent who is on duties for his professional road team, produced a solid performance in the men's team pursuit. They finished in a time of 4:04.218 and will take on Belgium in the bronze-medal ride.

World champions Australia take on Beijing gold medallists Britain for the gold medal ride in the men's 4000m team pursuit, but unusually will have to wait until the final night of the programme on Monday (NZ time).

"The guys found the track very heavy tonight, so if you are slightly off the pace it is very difficult to pick things up," said BikeNZ men's coach Tim Carswell. "For us it was a solid performance but not brilliant. We came here to try out some different combinations and to get into the medal ride and get another opportunity to race on the track, so we have achieved that."

Canada were the surprise pacesetters in the women's 3000m qualifying with a significant improvement on their previous best to clock 3:20.785 ahead of hosts Britain. Australia and the Netherlands ride off for the bronze medal.

BikeNZ women's coach Dayle Cheatley said the New Zealand trio of Alison Shanks, Jaime Nielsen and Lauren Ellis were gutted about the effort and time of 3:25:468 on the track that will be used for the London Olympics.

"The team never got on the right pace from the start and could not bring it back in the second half," Cheatley said. "They have been doing 3:25 pace regularly in training so this is really disappointing today. Everything indicated they were more than capable to ride the 3:20 pace that we had set.

"They were not overawed and seemed well prepared. The disappointing thing is that they won't get a second ride now and a further chance on the track."

The first full day of action begins tomorrow, including competition in the women's team's pursuit, team's sprint and scratch race while the men will contest the points, team's sprint, kilo and the first day of the omnium.

Results from the UCI track cycling World Cup in London today:

Women's 3000m team's pursuit qualifying: Canada 3:20.785, 1; Great Britain 3:21.370, 2; Australia 3:21.426, 3; Netherlands 3:22.776, 4; USA 3:23.208, 5; New Zealand (Lauren Ellis, Jaime Nielsen, Alison Shanks) 3:25.468, 6.

Men's 4000m team's pursuit qualifying: Australia 3:57.885, 1; Great Britain 3:58.446, 2; New Zealand (Marc Ryan, Aaron Gate, Westley Gough, Sam Bewley) 4:04.218, 3; Belgium 4:06.596, 4.