UCI World Track Cycling Championships Day 5
New Zealand completed their most successful ever campaign when Lauren Ellis won a silver in the points race on the final night of the UCI Wold Track Cycling championships in Copenhagen.
Ellis (Hinds) followed her bronze medal in the team pursuit with a brilliant ride to win the final sprint in the 25km points race. This capped a superb week for the New Zealanders with further five performances in the top eight on top of medals in the men’s individual pursuit, men’s and women’s team pursuit and women’s points race.
This is one more medal than the previous best of three gained at Poland last year. New Zealand won 11 medals at the world track championships from the first by Harry Kent in 1970 until 2008, but a further seven in the last two years as a testament to the power of their current high performance programme.
“We are naturally delighted and excited by the performances this week,” said Mark Elliott, BikeNZ High Performance Director. “The team came here with high expectations and knowing they had done the work to be competitive.
“Tonight was the icing on the cake and a terrific performance from Lauren. As well as the medallists in the endurance events, we are really pleased with the emergence of our sprinters. They are a very young group and to have top 10 performances in each of their disciplines and go so close to a medal in the kilo and team sprint was encouraging.
“The pursuiters are pleased but at the same time they know that it was not perfect for them. They set such high expectations of themselves now that they are not satisfied now just with a bronze medal. They want to change the colour of their medals going forward to gold by the time they hit London in 2012.
“High performance sport is all about never being quite satisfied and always knowing you can do better. The exciting thing about this group of athletes is that they all believe that and are driven by that ethos.”
Elliott said most of the team will now have a break, with some heading to their professional road teams, before their build-up towards the Commonwealth Games in October now buoyed with a belief that there are a number of medal prospects in the squad.
Ellis set the seal on things with her silver medal today. She positioned herself near the front of the bunch staying out of danger and pushing to lead a group of five who took a lap on the field early in the 25km race. She attacked again mid-race and then recovered to win the final sprint which elevated her to the silver medal in a superb performance, with Canada’s Tara Whitten winning the gold.
“I knew I had to be aggressive. That was the plan tonight and it paid off,” Ellis said. “It worked out when we managed to take a lap so early. I sat in to recover and went again. I was shattered but knew I had to make one more big effort in that last sprint.
“I told myself that I could put my feet up for three weeks after this so I pushed one more time. It was so hard but it worked out perfectly.
“It’s a real thrill. To come here and get two medals and a world record is incredible. It is right up there for me.
“I am very excited now looking ahead to the Commonwealth Games. That’s the big goal for me now and this is a good platform looking forward to New Delhi.”
Auckland’s Myron Simpson, the only other New Zealander on the track today, finished 10th in the men’s omnium, with personal bests in the 200m time trial, individual pursuit and kilo time trial on the way.
Most of the New Zealand team return home on Wednesday (NZ time).
Results:
Women’s 25km points race: Tara Whitten (CAN) 36 points, 1; Lauren Ellis (NZL) 33 points, 2; Tatsiana Sharakova (BLR) 33 points, 3.
Men’s Omnium: Ed Clancy (GBR) 1, Leigh Howard (AUS) 2, Taylor Phinney (USA) 3. Also: Myron Simpson (NZL) 10.
Simpson’s results: 200m time trial 10.647s, 4; 10km scratch race: 11; 3000m individual pursuit: 3:23.755, 11; 15km points race: 15th; 1km time trial: 1:04.269, 6.