Cycling: NZ Sprinters say medal no fluke

Team New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images.

New Zealand's sprint cycling sensations say there was nothing fluky about the bronze they picked up on the first night of finals at the world track cycling championships in Melbourne yesterday.

Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Eddie Dawkins broke the 44s barrier at Melbourne's Hisense Arena, picking up New Zealand's first medal in the team sprint when they beat Japan in a ride-off for the bronze medal.

Initially it looked like they would have to settle for a creditable fifth, but the powerful Great Britain and German teams were disqualified for riding infractions.

In no way did that detract from their moment, Webster said.

"We rode a better process than those two other teams," he said. "That's the sport. They didn't follow their process and they ended up getting rubbed."

It was a sentiment echoed by fellow Aucklander and lead-out man Mitchell.

"That's team sprint racing. There are rules set out. We train to perfect everything and luckily for us it paid off," he said.

The medal is seen as validation of the hard work the sprint team have put in with coach Justin Grace over the past 18 months.

"The medal backs up our mentality and method and our approach towards racing. It's become that much stronger and it's given us belief," the 20-year-old Webster said.

"It's an extra boost of confidence. We always come to these races to win. We've come here and we've got ourselves this bronze medal."

Although the sprint programme has been set up with the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics in mind - the women's team sprint of Natasha Hansen and Katie Schofield slipped out of contention for this year's London games last night but are pegged as having a great future - the men's success has given hope they could be contending later this year.