New Zealand competes in the Women's Team Pursuit during day one of the UCI World Track Cycling Championships. Photo / Getty Images
New Zealand's young sprinters grabbed an impressive silver medal on the opening day of cycling's World Cup meet at Melbourne overnight (NZT).
The trio of Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Eddie Dawkins qualified second fastest and were just pipped by the Beijing Olympic gold medallists, Great Britain, in the gold
medal ride-off.
It proved an impressive night for the New Zealand squad with the Auckland pair of Aaron Gate and Myron Simpson winning silver in the Madison and the women's team pursuit picking up the bronze medal.
Timaru's Shane Archbold currently leads the omnium after three of the six events.
The New Zealand sprint trio, who played second fiddle to the Australian combination in Delhi, produced a superb qualifying time of 44.278 seconds, which put them second behind the Great Britain combination led by Beijing Olympics triple gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy.
The British team won in 43.939sec.
The New Zealanders' time was only 0.0015sec outside their medal winning time at the Commonwealth Games. They were faster than both Olympic medallists Germany and Australia and led by Invercargill's Eddie Dawkins who recorded 13.457sec for his final flying lap, the fastest of all last leg riders.
New Zealand's Kaytee Boyd, Lauren Ellis and Jaime Nielsen qualified fourth fastest in the women's team pursuit but dominated a full strength Canadian line-up in the bronze medal ride in a slick three minutes 23.477 seconds, with Australia winning the final over Germany.
Gate and Simpson again produced an excellent combination in the men's Madison, but like last week's Oceania Championships they could not match Australian's Cameron Meyer and Leigh Howard to stole a lap on the field. The New Zealanders again collected the most points in the 30km final with Netherlands third.
Archbold had a top ride to be fourth fastest in the flying 250m lap, fifth in the Points race after covering all of the key breaks and fourth in the elimination to move to the top of the points table.
He will compete in the 1km time trial individual pursuit and scratch race tonight.
The Melbourne World Cup has drawn a stellar entry with full strength teams from Great Britain, Australia, Canada, China and several other leading European nations in the first major international with qualifying points for the 2012 London Olympics.
- NZPA
