New Zealand's women's pursuit team booked a place in the bronze medal race later this morning. Photo / AP
The New Zealand women's pursuit cycling team have booked a ride for a bronze medal later this morning after recording an easy victory over Poland in their first round race.
In what was largely a heart-breaking morning for New Zealand's track cycling team - with two riders knocked out of
their events by the smallest of margins - the pursuit team rescued the morning session.
The team of Lauren Ellis, Racquel Sheath, Rushlee Buchanan and Jaime Nielsen beat Poland by nearly ten seconds, finishing in a time of 4:17.592 to qualify for the bronze medal race which will take place at 8:07am NZ time.
Earlier, Sam Webster missed out on a place in men's sprint quarter-finals after comfortably going down to Russia's Denis Dmitriev in his 1/8 final race before finishing second by just 0.048s in his repechage.
It was also heartbreak in the women's keirin as both Natasha Hansen and Olivia Podmore missed out progressing past the first round.
