Kiwis open UCI Jnr Track World Champs with medals

Aug 18th, 11. Two medals is a great start to the UCI Junior World Track Championships campaign in Moscow by the eleven strong New Zealand team.

The Kiwis earned a bronze medal in the Female Team Sprint and bronze in the Male Team Pursuit. In addition, Hayden McCormick just missed out on a medal in the Scratch race, he finished 4th.

The Kiwi Team Pursuiters finished the 4000m bronze ride off in 4m05s. The team of Scott Creighton (Hamilton), Alex Frame (Christchurch), Fraser Gough (Havelock North) and Dylan Kennett (Waimate) raced 4m09s in their heat, but were pipped by the Russian host team who went through to the final against Australia.

The Australian team were super fast, riding to gold with a new world record of 4m02s. Last year the Kiwi team, which Frame was part of, lost the bronze medal ride-off to Germany, as happened in 2009. In 2011 it was the Germans knocked to 4th.

The bronze medal winning Team Sprint team was Stephanie McKenzie (Auckland) and Paige Paterson (Auckland). This is the second year in a row McKenzie has medalled in this event at the Junior World Championships.  Last year, riding with Henrietta Mitchell, she won the silver medal.

McCormick, who finished 4th in the 10km scratch race straight final, wrote on Facebook, "I went deep in the scratch race tonight, made a mistake with a lap to go and ended up 4th."

N.B. The official results are not yet available.

Full New Zealand team

For three of the riders, this is their second Junior Worlds - Christchurch's Alex Frame, Havelock North's Fraser Gough and Stephanie McKenzie, the Southland-based Aucklander.

The rest of the squad are making their debuts at this level and are no doubt keen to impress as they look forward to New Zealand hosting the UCI Junior World Championships in Invercargill next year.