Bronze for NZ team pursuiters

Mar 27th, 10. The Kiwis dominated the bronze medal ride-off to beat the 2009 World Champions from Denmark for the final spot on the podium in the men's team pursuit.

Kiwi team in the qualifying race ©Photo courtesy Guy Swarbrick ©www.trackcycling.me.uk

The Kiwi team were leading from the first lap and kept ahead despite a mechanical problem with three laps to go which saw the team forced to reshuffle when silver medal individual pursuiter Jesse Sergent dropped off the back.

Sam Bewley was rolling off the front to pass the lead to Sergent when Sergent flatted his front tyre and was forced to sit up.  

This caused the team some confusion, but Bewley did well to jump back on the front and keep the pace until Peter Latham took over.

The remaining three riders were able to recompose and, thanks to their early time buffer, continue on to win the ride-off and gain the bronze medal in a velodrome packed with fans screaming for Denmark.

• NZ time 3:59.475
• Danish time 4:01.464

The NZ team was Jesse Sergent, Peter Latham, Sam Bewley, Westley Gough.

"The pursuit boys set huge goals. They are hungry to get those rainbow stripes and they will go away from here for a break and then they will be itching to go even better in the Commonwealth Games later in the year," said Kiwi head coach Tim Carswell.

In the earlier qualifying round the same Kiwi line-up were disappointed to be just 4/10s off the gold medal ride-off with their time of 3:58.616. They had the fastest time at each of the three 1000m checkpoints but were pipped in the final 1000m to be 3rd qualifiers.

Australia claim bragging rights

In the thrilling finale, Australia just kept in front of a power surge by Great Britain to win the gold medal.

Rohan Dennis, 19, Jack Bobridge, 20, Michael Hepburn, 18, and Cameron Meyer, 22 set a time of 3:55.654, just over a tenth of a second faster than the silver medal time of Great Britain's Steven Burke, Edward Clancy, Ben Swift and Andrew Tennant.

Yesterday's individual pursuit bronze medallist Jack Bobridge couldn't stop grinning as he celebrated the win.

"I can't say anything at the moment," said Bobridge . "Last year I went home with two silver medals (individual pursuit and team pursuit) and this year started and I thought I'd go home with bronze (individual pursuit) and still happy with that but to win I can't describe it."

"The time we rode just shows we're coming for London and won't stop from here," he said. "The boys tonight rode so well as a team, Leigh Howard for us in the qualifying was fantastic as well, all five of us just have to take it away now and soak every minute of it up and we're going to."

For Meyer it's his second gold of the Championships with the Madison (teaming with Leigh Howard) still to come.

"It's unbelievable!" said Meyer. "A dream come true to come to the worlds and start with two rainbow jerseys. The boys rode so well and congratulations to Leigh Howard who rode a fantastic effort in the qualifying. We did a bit of switch around for the final but he is just as much a part of this rainbow jersey as we are."

NZ's medal tally after Day 2

With three medals, New Zealand has equalled their record medal haul achieved in last year's world championships.

Carswell said he is pleased with the performances to date with the quality of competition in Copenhagen a notch up from last year.

"The bar has been raised here in Copenhagen, that's for sure, so three medals so far is exceeding our targets. We have two days to go, so it would be great to get one more, and of course we have some top six performances to go with this," Carswell said.

Tomorrow sees Eddie Dawkins, Sam Webster and Ethan Mitchell contest the men’s sprints, Tom Scully and Marc Ryan in the Madison and Gemma Dudley in the women’s omnium, which consists of the 200m time trial, scratch race, pursuit, points race and 500m time trial.

Other news of the track today

• Dawkins fastest NZ time ever in kilo
• Rushlee Buchanan stayed safe for 15th in dramatic scratch race

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