Women's Team Pursuit Debuts at RaboPlus New Zealand Track Cycling Championships

The women’s team pursuit has made its debut at the RaboPlus New Zealand Track Championships in Invercargill with Waikato Bay of Plenty qualifying fastest for tonight’s final.

The Waikato Bay of Plenty team set the fastest time with 3:32.404, over six seconds faster than second placed Southland who they will ride off against in tonight’s final.

The women’s team pursuit is a new event on the world scene and teams consist of three riders per team as opposed to the men’s team pursuit, which consists of four.

The Waikato Bay of Plenty team features former rowing Olympian Sonia Waddell, who took up cycling just months ago.

Waddell, who is coached by Sarah Ulmer, finished 6th in the individual pursuit on Wednesday in her first ever track nationals.

The New Zealand selectors will be closely watching tonight’s finals with spots up for grabs in the national team pursuit line up for the UCI World Championships in Poland later this month.

The New Zealand team has already had success at World Cup level with Alison Shanks, Lauren Ellis and Kaytee Boyd winning gold in Beijing earlier this year.

In the other events raced this morning Canterbury qualified fastest for tonight’s Women’s 500m Team Sprint final, while Auckland qualified fastest for the men’s 750m Team Sprint Final.

Day 5 Morning Session Results:

Women’s 3000m Team Pursuit Qualifying:
Waikato (Rushlee Buchanan, Jamie Neilson, Sonia Waddell) 3:32.404 1, Southland (Dale Tye, Sequoia Cooper, Cathy Jordan) 3:38.931 2, West Coast North Island (Brei Gudsell, Gemma Dudley, Kerri-Anne Torckler) 3:42.318 3, Auckland (Marina Duvnjak, Ashleigh James, Kaytee Boyd) 3:44.105 4.

Open Women 500m Team Sprint Qualifying
Canterbury (Natasha Hansen, Elizabeth Steel) 36.597 1, Auckland JU19#1 (Claire Routledge, Henrietta Mitchell) 37.378 2, Otago (Honor Davies, Charlotte Kelly) 37.424 3, Wellington (Hannah Latta, Hayley Giddens) 38.730 4.

Elite Men 750 Team Sprint Qualifying
Auckland #1 (Andrew Williams, Myron Simpson, Damien Wiseman) 47.036 1, Canterbury (Hayden Godfrey, Adam Stewart, Sam Steele) 47.612 2, Southland (Eddie Dawkins, Hamish Presbury, Ian Denise) 47.769 3, Auckland #2 (Ben Simpson, Jamie Bate, Jonathan Bass) 49.561 4.

For full results: bikenz.org.nz