Silver for the Kiwi team pursuit women

Dec 2nd, 11. The NZ women's team pursuit won the silver medal at the UCI Track World Cup event in Cali Colombia this afternoon where Simon Van Velthooven also earned a silver medal.

As the fastest qualifiers in yesterday's team pursuit qualifying round, Alison Shanks, Jaime Nielsen and Lauren Ellis faced Great Britain in the final.

The Kiwis were slower through the 1st and 2nd kilometre marks and did not manage to pull back the time in the final kilometre after they dropped Neilsen with a lap and a half to go.

"We started in the first six laps really focussing on our own pace and setting out what we know we can do and then race them for the last six laps," said Ellis. "It was only the last two laps really that didn't go to plan. We still went out there to execute the best ride we could, and sometimes it is not always perfect."

Ellis said while there were no excuses, the group found this week tough after competing in the Oceania Championships last week before facing the 30-hour trip to Colombia.

"We raced on the Thursday night then flew our Friday. It's a long way over here. We got in on Sunday and then to race on Wednesday and Thursday is tough.

"It's just the start of our season and we are all in good shape and looking ahead now."

Great Britain's Laura Trott, Sarah Storey and Wendy Houvenhagel won the gold medal in a time of 3m21.848s to NZ's 3:22.458 (as reported by media at the event).

In the bronze medal ride off, United States were a half a second faster than Lithuania after the 1st 1000m and extended their lead considerably to claim their place at the bottom step of the event's podium.

USA's time was 3m22.149s to Lithuania's 3m31.069.

All time's unofficial at this stage - the official results differ significant (they show much slower times) from what was reported by media at the event.

NZ's Simon Van Velthooven added to the silverware by winning the silver medal in the Men's 1000m kilo event. Unofficial results - Francois Pervis FRA (1:00.075), Simon Van Velthooven NZ (1:01.160), Filip Ditzel CZE (1:02.009)

The men's TP race gold medal ride is coming up!