Women's Pursuit to Bronze Medal Ride - UCI Track World Cup Mexico

DAY 2  WOMEN'S PURSUIT TO BRONZE MEDAL RIDE, UCI TRACK WORLD CUP – GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

The New Zealand women's team pursuit, in their first international competition for two years, qualified for the medal ride in the opening UCI Track World Cup in Mexico, Saturday.

The combination of Rushlee Buchanan, Lauren Ellis, Jaime Nielsen and Georgia Williams, who qualified second fastest, were beaten by Canada in the semifinal on Saturday.

However their time of 4:25:503, faster than their previous best set in qualifying, was the fourth fastest overall to qualify for the bronze medal ride. They will meet the much improved Chinese combination who clocked 4:24:934 in losing to Great Britain in the other semifinal.

The world champion Great Britain line-up takes on Canada for the gold medal.

However the men's team pursuit just missed out on a medal ride. The fifth fastest qualifiers beat Spain in the first round, but lost momentum in the last kilometre when they caught and had to overtake their opponents on a bend.

They managed an excellent 3:58.685 but it was a second slower than Germany and Switzerland who will ride off for the bronze medal. Australia, who posted 3:55:375 meet Great Britain who were able to cruise after Netherlands blew up in their semifinal.

In other racing, Cameron Karwowski was third in the scratch race and 10th in the 4000m individual pursuit to start the men's omnium competition.

In the women's omnium, debutante Rachel Sheath was 10th in the scratch and 13th in the 3000m individual pursuit.

Meanwhile both Sam Webster and Matt Archibald were eliminated in the men's keirin competition. Both went through the repechage but neither was able to gain the win to progress to the second round.

CAPTION: The women's team pursuit in action. The image is free for editorial use only. Credit: Guy Swarbrick-BikeNZ