New Zealand riders made a brilliant start to their 2026 track cycling campaign with three medals including two golds on the opening day of the UCI World Cup in Hong Kong.
Kiwi combinations took out the gold medal finals in both the women’s and men’s team pursuit, while experienced Southlander Tom Sexton grabbed the silver medal in the elimination final.
The women rotated their five-strong squad, with Bryony Botha, Samantha Donnelly, Emily Shearman, Ally Wollaston bouncing back from the qualifying ride of 4:17.158 which was third fastest behind Italy and hosts China.
The Paris Olympic silver medallists won their first round convincingly over China in 4:10.351 to qualify for the final and were emphatic in their winning performance over Great Britain for the gold medal.
The combination of Botha, Prue Fowler, Shearman and Wollaston saved their best until last with an impressive 4:09.834 ride to win the final by over half a lap.
They were 1.7s ahead at the 2000m mark, up by 3.1s at 3000m and stormed home to win by over eight seconds.
“We went in with a clear goal. We wanted to focus on ourselves and produce a ride we could be proud of,” said Shearman.
“We weren’t stoked with the qualifying this morning and the final was building on from that performance. We are super-stoked to come away with a ride we are proud of. It was well-executed and that resulted in the win and a good time.”
Donnelly moved on from the pursuit qualifier to finish sixth in the elimination.
This was matched by a strong performance by the men’s team pursuit with Keegan Hornblow, Marshall Erwood, George Jackson and Daniel Morton fastest in qualifying in 3:52.838s, before disposing on Japan in the first round with Nic Kergozou coming into the line-up.
They came up against perennial rivals Denmark in the final, which looked to be another thriller with the kiwis up by a blink at 1000m, down by 0.3s at the halfway, then up by 0.2s at 3000m before a superb final kilometre in 54.9s to move two seconds clear for the victory.
“We have five guys here who rode across all the rounds,” said Hornblow. “We qualified first which, to honest, was a little bit of a surprise. But to back that up ride-after-ride and come out on top was a great team result.”
The experienced Tom Sexton was spelled from the team pursuit squad to focus on the key individual events, and that decision paid dividends immediately, winning the silver medal in the omnium.
He survived some aggressive riding in the early stages and was just pipped in the two-rider final by Italy’s Matteo Florin with third placed Yoeri Havik (NED) relegated to third for dangerous riding.
“It was a different approach for me in this competition and was unsure how I would fare against everyone else. I had a plan and stuck to it,” said Sexton.
“I didn’t have quite enough go-go in the final to get the Italian but I was pleased with that and a boost going into the omnium tomorrow which will be fun.”
Earlier Donnelly was sixth in the women’s elimination race.
New Zealand started a new-look young women’s team sprint, with Olympic medallists Shaane Fulton recovering from injury and Rebecca Petch recently back to training after the birth of her baby boy.
Olympic reserve Olivia King and Southland teenager Riley Faulkner joined Paris star Ellesse Andrews in the women’s team sprint. They qualified an enterprising fifth fastest, before being edged by Australia in the first round, gaining invaluable ranking points and experience, moving into the top-10 after two of three World Cup competitions.
Action tomorrow moves to individual events with Andrews and King in the women’s sprint, Sam Dakin in the keirin, Sexton in the omnium and the women’s madison.