Default gold for Kiwi men in team pursuit

Dec 2nd, 11. The New Zealand men's team pursuit squad won the gold medal after Australia crashed in the 1st 500m and chose not to restart the race in Cali, Columbia.

The Kiwis were the second fastest qualifiers in yesterday's heats of the World Cup round and were eager to take on the Australians in today's final.

The drama started early when Australia's Mitchell Mulhern, on the back of the quartet, crashed before the 500m mark. The race was soon halted and a restart seemed to have ordered. 

For whatever reason, the Australian team chose not to ride and were recorded as a DNF. New Zealand won the gold medal by default - not the way they wanted to take the top step of the podium!

"Australia will not ride the teams pursuit final in Cali. New Zealand automatically receive the gold medal," is what the Australian team twittered after the incident.

In the bronze medal ride off, Denmark beat Colombia in a hard fought duel, despite the latter having home town advantage.

Denmark led from the start and had almost a half second lead after the 1st kilometre of the 4km race. The Colombians, however, came back strongly, but were not quite quick enough. Denmark finished in a time of 4m07s.387, 0.8s ahead of Colombia.

Archbold DSQ from omnium

In the omnium elimination event, NZ's Shane Archbold crashed off the track when he couldn't avoid a rider who fell right in front of him. He was able to rejoin the race and was later eliminated as the 6th to last rider. He did not appear happy with being told he was eliminated, with arm gesturing to the judges, and was later recorded as disqualified.  

He is unable to continue in the rest of the omnium events.

Earlier in the day, New Zealand earned two silver medals thanks to Simon Van Velthooven in the Kilo sprint event and the women's team pursuit squad.  Read more ...

The NZ sprint team crashed out of their qualifying race and were not able to continue. Read more ...