BRONZE for the NZ Men's Pursuit Team

Mar 28th, '09. The Men's 4000m Pursuit team won the BRONZE medal beating off Olympic and world champions Great Britain in the finals ride-off this morning at the UCI World Track Championships in Poland.

The combination of Wes Gough (Waipukurau), Peter Latham (Te Awamutu), Marc Ryan (Timaru) and Sergent were fourth fastest in the afternoon qualifying in 4:01.186 behind Denmark, Australia and Great Britain.

Jesse Sergent drives the team on with Peter Latham, Wes Gough and Marc Ryan behind. (c) Hennes Roth – BikeNZ

The Bronze is New Zealand's third medal to make it their most successful campaign at the world championships with two days still remaining.

This surpasses the two medals won at Maebashi in 1990, Berlin in 1999 and Melbourne in 2004 and is the first time New Zealand has won a world championship medal in the team pursuit.

This backs up the pursuit team's bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics.

Today they clocked 4:00.248 in the ride-off to beat the British combination by 1.6 seconds, while Olympic silver medallists Denmark won the gold over Australia.


After missing out on the gold medal ride-off by 6/10ths of a second, the BikeNZ team made some key changes to their tactics.

"We really nailed it tonight. We were a bit disappointed in the morning because we didn't start very well and it was so close with only 1.3 seconds covering the top four," Jesse Sergent said. "We didn't have much time to dwell on that though between sessions and tonight we went out faster and managed to roll on from there."

Sergent, 20, said the bronze medal was some compensation after he missed out on the medal round in the individual pursuit yesterday.

"I guess one upside was that I was fresher for the team pursuit today but I am still a bit gutted over that ride. It was only my second international ride in the individual pursuit and I just went out too fast and ran out of legs. I've learned from that and now I've moved on."

Sergent and team-mate Sam Bewley (Rotorua) will indeed be moving on, as they fly to Colorado on Monday to join up with their new Trek Livestrong professional road team which includes American star Taylor Phinney who won the individual pursuit title and was second in today's time trial.

"It's a big opportunity and we want to make sure we make the most of it. We've been in contact with Taylor right through the championships here and I am sure it's going to be a fantastic experience."

New Zealand jumped to an early advantage in the bronze medal ride-off to open a lead of 7/10ths of a second after the first kilometre. They were always in command from that point, finishing strongly with 59.169 for the final kilo, the fastest of any of the four teams in the final, to clock 4:00.248.

Denmark came from behind to beat the Australians by 6/10ths of a second in the final, clocking 3:58.246.

New Zealand on the podium (with Denmark and Australia) from left Wes Gough, Marc Ryan, Jesse Sergent and Peter Latham.
(c) Hennes Roth – BikeNZ

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