Two golds put NZ on to medal table

8.00am

Cycling queen Sarah Ulmer smashed her second world record in as many days to win New Zealand's second gold medal of the Athens Olympics early today (NZ time).

Ulmer, like the Evers-Swindell twins before her in the rowing double sculls, went into the Olympic 3000m individual pursuit with that gilt-edged look about her.

She beat her own world mark set just the previous day in qualifying with a new time of three minutes 24.537 seconds, overwhelming her close friend and rival Katie Mactier, of Australia, in the gold medal final.

Ulmer, New Zealand's first Olympic cycling champion, and Mactier locked arms as they saluted the sellout 3300-crowd at the Olympic Velodrome after their duel.

On the medal dais Ulmer acknowledged New Zealand fans performing a haka for her and after the medal ceremony she ran across to the track and hugged her tearful mother Nuala, father Garry and brother Peter in the crowd.

In just three months Ulmer, 28, has whittled six seconds off her world record of 3min 30.604sec, set on the way to beating Mactier in the pursuit final of the Melbourne world championships in May.

Today, after adding the Olympic gold to her world and Commonwealth crowns, Ulmer has been crowned the undisputed queen of pursuiting, taking the mantle off former Olympic champion and world recordholder Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel.

But the 34-year-old Dutch cycling legend bowed out of the Olympics with a bronze pursuiting medal, beating Australia's Kate Bates, to add to her three gold medals from the Sydney Olympics and another gold for the time trial in Athens.

It was the third time a world record was broken in the women's pursuit in Athens.

Mactier broke Ulmer's three-month old world record on Saturday by 0.659sec with 3min 29.945sec in the qualifying round to become the first woman to break the 3:30 barrier in the pursuit.

Ulmer struck back, dealing a huge psychological blow to Mactier by retrieving her record in the next heat when she clocked 3min 26.400sec.

Ulmer is competing at her third Olympics. She finished seventh in 1996 and fourth four years ago when she battled injury and was pipped by a wheel for the bronze medal.

Older, stronger, wiser, Ulmer arrived late in Athens -- shunning the heady atmosphere and distractions of Olympic life for as long as possible, to stay relaxed and focused at her pre-Games training base in southern France.

Ulmer's proud father and cycling mentor, Gary, always believed his daughter could cycle as fast as today but was still awestruck.

"That was astonishing, out of the blue," he said.

"Normally the third ride of an Olympic competition, you'd be starting to buckle a little bit.

"The amazing thing is that she has never stopped the incremental improvement right through her life. In the early days, she was okay but she just progressively got better and better."

New Zealand's medal drought at the Games was broken on Saturday by the formidable identical twins, Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, who controlled their double sculls final throughout -- though they had to withstand a withering finish from Germans Britta Oppelt and Peggy Waleska to win by a second.

New Zealand flagbearer Beatrice Faumuina was unable to add to the medal count at Olympic Stadium, finishing seventh with a best throw of 63.45m.

After throwing poorly at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney four years later, Faumuina was pleased to have shown something like her best form at an Olympics.

Last night (NZ time) there was surprising news from the showjumping competition, where Grant Cashmore tied for the lead with 10 other riders after a clear first round.

Bruce Goodin, Daniel Meech and Guy Thomas all had unspectacular opening rounds.

Basketball's Tall Blacks kept their playoff hopes alive, even though they lost another thriller, 94-98 to Argentina.

The Tall Ferns women's team, already assured of a quarterfinal berth, lost 57-74 to the Czech Republic to finish fourth in their five-strong group.

The men's hockey team finally had their medal hopes extinguished despite a thrilling 2-1 win over India, their second victory in succession.

New Zealand needed Australia to draw with South Africa in the late match to stay in playoff contention, but Australia won 3-2, consigning New Zealand to the fifth to eighth place playoffs with one pool match remaining.

The women's first win of the tournament, 3-2 over Spain, also came too late for their qualifying hopes but at least saw them avoid the playoff for last place.

The men's track cycling pursuit team made an ignominious exit after clocking the slowest time of 10 teams this morning.

The Olympic sailing regatta was over for another two New Zealanders today, with Sarah Macky finishing eighth in the Europe class and Hamish Pepper seventh overall in the Lasers.

- NZPA