UCI World Track Cycling Championships, Day 3 Wrap

New Zealand’s men’s team pursuit claimed the bronze medal at the UCI World Track Cycling Championships in Copenhagen today.

It’s New Zealand’s third medal at the championships, matching their best ever haul achieved last year in Poland, and also the pursuit team’s bronze at the Beijing Olympics and in last year’s world championships.

The combination of Jesse Sergent, Sam Bewley, Peter Latham and Wes Gough overcame a mechanical problem for Sergent three laps from the finish to beat off hosts Denmark for the bronze, clocking 3:59.475.

Earlier 21-year-old Eddie Dawkins impressed in finishing fifth in the kilometre time trial, beating his own New Zealand record time in the process and taking a significant jump from his 10th last year.

Head coach Tim 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.

“The team pursuit have mixed feelings. They have to be happy with the bronze, but they set such high standards and things are so close with the leading teams, that they were disappointed not to be in the gold medal ride.

“They were well on track to achieve that at the 3km mark in qualifying but just fell off over that last kilometre. We looked to have a top time nailed in the ride-off until Jesse got a puncture.”

Sergent was about to take a lap from Bewley when he flatted his front tyre and was forced to sit up, causing confusion but the team was able to recover with the three remaining riders for the remainder of the journey.

“They boys recovered well so to do but it cost them quite a bit of time, although they had the race under control.”

Australia upset defending world champions Great Britain to win the final, holding on in a frantic finish to prevail by 15/100ths of a second.

“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.”

They clocked 3:58.616 for third fastest time in the qualifying ride, just 4/10ths behind second fastest Australia with Great Britain quickest in 3:56.869. The kiwis were fastest through the 3km mark before being reduced to three riders when Bewley dropped off with three laps remaining.

Dawkins is buoyed by his outstanding performance in finishing fifth in the demanding kilo time trial, recording 1:01.327 to take 2/10ths off his New Zealand record time set two months ago.

It is a significant jump from his 10th placing last year as well as establishing himself as the fastest of the Commonwealth competitors.

Dawkins was 3/10ths of a second off the podium, showing excellent back half speed after he fell 1.9s behind winner Teun Mulder through 500m. The burly young kiwi was second fastest of all riders over the last lap.

“I’ve been working on my starts and that was my fastest start and I went under my record time, so overall I am really pleased. I came put it all out on the track and I did that,” Dawkins said.

“I would have loved a medal but I am still really young in this sport. I am more concentrating on sprints right now than the kilo so this was great and gives me so much confidence for tomorrow.

“Our whole sprint team have done well so far. Our coach Justin Grace has set goals for us and we keep exceeding them so he has to keep re-evaluating right now.

“I think we have raised a few eyebrows this week. New Zealand is not turning up at sprints just to fill in the spots now. We are genuine contenders.”

Team-mate Ethan Mitchell) 19, part of last year’s world junior champion winning team sprint, was 16th fastest and fellow Aucklander Myron Simpson, preparing for Monday’s omnium, was 20th.

Also team pursuit medallist Rushlee Buchanan finished 15th in the bunch in the 15km women’s scratch race.

Tomorrow sees Dawkins, Sam Webster and 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.

Day 3 results:

Men’s 4000m team pursuit, qualifying: Great Britain 3:56.869, 1; Australia 3:58.185, 2; New Zealand (Sam Bewley, Wes Gough, Peter Latham, Jesse Sergent) 3:58.616, 3; Denmark 4:02.259, 4.

Gold medal: Australia Great Britain. Bronze medal: New Zealand (Bewley, Gogh, Latham, Sergent) 3:59.475, 3; Denmark

Men’s Kilometre Time Trial: Teun Mulder (NED) 1:00.341, 1; Michael D’Almeida (FRA) 1:00.884, 2; Francois Pervis (FRA) 1:01.024, 3; Stefan Nimke (GER) 1:01.086, 4; Eddie Dawkins (NZL) 1:01.372, 5. Also: Ethan Mitchell (NZL) 1:03.389, 16; Myron Simpson (NZL) 1:03.691, 20.

Women’s 10km scratch race: Pascale Jeuland (FRA) 1, Yumari Gonzalez Valdivieso (CUB) 2, Belinda Goss (AUS) 3. Also Rushlee Buchanan (NZL) 15.

Details: www.bikenz.org.nz