Kiwis Can Fly, New Zealand's First Gold Medal on the Track in 2012.

Southland's Philippa Gray and Laura Thompson proved Kiwis can fly in the London Velodrome today, claiming gold in the individual B pursuit and pulverising the former world record by nearly 5 seconds in their qualification ride.

The duo now own the record that had stood since 2009 with a new time of 3:31.50, from 3:36.362 and the old Paralympic record which had stayed put since Athens in 2004.
It’s New Zealand’s first gold on the track in 2012 and the country's first ever gold in the tandem discipline. 
Their opponents from Ireland, who are the current world champs, could only manage 3:36.66.
“It’s pretty heavy [the medal], it’s definitely a better colour than bronze and it just feels amazing, I don’t even think it’s sunk in yet,” Gray announced just minutes after the medal ceremony. 

“The world record [which they set earlier in the day] doesn’t even feel real yet, nothing feels real, it’s just a dream.”

Seeing the country’s flag hoisted high in the velodrome was one sight Gray says she'll never forget, and now she has a taste, she wants more in the future. “It’s pretty special, a feeling you do want to replicate and keep trying to achieve as well," Gray admitted, indicating positive signs for a repeat in Rio.

Although lost for words to describe how she was feeling with the prize around her neck, Thompson felt like it was a fitting reward for some long hours on the bike. “You talk about it so much, for like 6 months we’ve been talking about it, saying if we do this, if we do that we’ve got potential to get the gold medal, so it’s really nice to actually cross that line and done it, done the work and got the result.” 

Gray cheered as she crossed the finishing line to claim a bronze medal two days ago, but there was little said between the two when they crossed that same line today. Their first emotion was a feeling of exhaustion, “You don’t really have much to let out," said Thompson as she perched next to the cold brick wall to try and cool herself, “those were two pretty hard rides today.” And the quick turnaround from their qualification to the final left little time for anything bar the bare essentials. “By the time you did your warm down, did your ice bath, massage, ate lunch, it was pretty much time to come back to the track again,” explained Thompson.

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And Mary Fisher has just won silver in the 100m Backstroke.