Cycling: BikeNZ ramps up support

The New Zealand men's team pursuit in action at the Commonwealth Games. PHOTO/GUY SWARBICK

BikeNZ is adding more track coaches to the arsenal of its head coach Dayle Cheatley in the final two-year buildup to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

After success at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, where 11 medals were won on the track under Cheatley's watch, there will now be a specialist coaches for each specific squad, so the Wanganui-raised head coach can focus on overseeing all three teams.

Tim Carswell returns to the national set-up as men's endurance coach, joining sprint coach Anthony Peden and women's endurance coach Craig Palmer.

Cheatley had been directly coaching the men's endurance programme as well as doing the head coach role that he was hired for two years ago.

Carswell, a former Commonwealth Games medallist, coached the track team at the Beijing and London Olympics, before leaving to take up a coaching role with the sport's ruling body, the UCI, based in Switzerland.

Having completed that two-year contract, he has returned home with his family.

Mark Elliott, the BikeNZ high-performance director, said the timing proved ideal.

"Our vision had always been to have Dayle focus on a position as head coach to ensure we have the best possible knowledge transfer across all of our programmes, and focus on the collective growth of all of our squads.

"Both Rio and Tokyo Olympics will demand a higher level of strategic planning to ensure we make the most of qualification and performance delivery on the day.

"This has been our vision since the London Olympics, but we needed to get the right people into the right roles to make it effective, and to have the funding in place."

Carswell will take up his position in mid-October.