An under-strength New Zealand’s women’s team pursuit combination overcame the odds to claim their second gold medal in two weeks at the UCI Track World Cup in Malaysia.
With key rider Ally Wollaston having returned to her professional road racing duties in Europe, the team were further challenged with emerging star Prudence Fowler coping with ill-health which forced a change of tactics.
Fowler moved to the unaccustomed role of starting, and having led for the first few laps, she pulled off, with the remaining three riders – Bryony Botha, Samantha Donnelly and Emily Shearman -negotiating the final 12 laps of the 4000m journey.
It did not prevent New Zealand topping qualifiers in 4:16.917 and winning their first-round clash against the Netherlands, recording the fastest time of 4:10.857 to move into the gold medal clash.
They had a tight battle against China in the final with the teams equal at 1000m, and the kiwis holding the slimmest of margins over the next 2000m before powering clear over the final kilometre to win by nearly two seconds.
The combination was fastest at 1:08 for the first kilometre before reeling off three further kilos in 1:01 in an impressive ride.
“We had to be quite adaptable with Pru (Fowler) not feeling super-good throughout the first part of the week,” said Botha.
“We changed our strategy with Pru doing the first three or four laps of the TP, and the rest of us taking it from there. It went well considering Pru is not our usual first-wheel starter, and we did not have Ally with us either. With only four riders, we had to make do with what we had in the situation.
“We were actually quite surprised. We went into it with no expectations on ourselves and just wanted to do a ride that we were proud of – and I think we can definitely be proud.”
The men’s team pursuit had mixed fortunes, with the gold medallists from Hong Kong last week again topping qualifiers in 3:51.722 ahead of China and Italy.
However, the kiwi quartet of Marshall Erwood, George Jackson, Daniel Morton, Tom Sexton were upset by France in the first round to be edged out of medal contention.
In a close battle, the kiwis were marginally ahead at the 3000m mark but could not match the French combination over the final 1000m and were only fifth fastest to miss out on a medal ride.
Earlier Keegan Hornblow was pipped for a medal in the exciting elimination race, edged out in the sprint for the podium with the big field whittled down to four riders.
Tomorrow Hornblow returns to compete in the four-race omnium with Botha and Fowler combining in the two-rider madison and Sam Dakin competing in the men’s sprint.
The third round of the UCI Track World Cup is being staged at the impressive Nilai Velodrome Nasional in Malaysia.