Stewart rides high with gold in pursuit
Manawatu track cycling sensation Campbell Stewart has won this third world junior championship title.
Having won the scratch race and omnium in Kazakhstan last year, Stewart and the men’s pursuit team won gold in Aigle, Switzerland yesterday, breaking the world record in the process.
After qualifying fastest on the first day, the men’s squad of Stewart, Jared Gray, Tom Sexton, Connor Brown and Josh Scott were in good form again on Friday.
Brown came in for Scott in Friday’s line-up, with New Zealand enjoying the rare sight of over-lapping perennial rivals Australia in the semifinal, while Denmark upset last week’s European championship winners Great Britain in the other semifinal.
The Danes started strongly in the final to hold a half-second lead at 1000m, with the Kiwi combination drawing level mid race on
the back of a blistering 58-second kilometre.
Their speed remained high as they broke the backs of the Danish team, to not only win comfortably by over three seconds, but their time of 4:01.409 took more than a second off the world record.
The men’s team pursuit continues a rich heritage in this event that dates back to the bronze medal win in 1993.
It is just the second time New Zealand has won the gold medal, following the efforts at Vienna in 2005 by a team that included latter Olympic medallists Jesse Sergent, Sam Bewley and Westley Gough.
Stewart was to ride the omnium this morning, then the madison on Monday morning, with Sexton as his partner.
It is a big schedule for Stewart, but he is in good condition.
It wasn’t the only medal for a Manawatu rider, because Michaela Drummond and Emily Shearman were in the 4000m team pursuit team who won silver.
The New Zealand women’s team pursuit is a young combination, with just Drummond back from last year’s world-championship-winning combination.
She was joined by Shearman, Kate Smith, Nicole Shields as they also got the better of Australia in their semifinal.
They were neck and neck with their rivals at 3000m, but the Australians imploded under the pressure with the Kiwi quartet winning emphatically in 4:35.741.
New Zealand took up the fight against top qualifiers Italy in the final, with the pair locked together at 2000m.
The Italians put on the gas to push clear to win by seven seconds in 4:31.157 to break the world record set by New Zealand when they won in Kazakhstan last year.
‘‘Today was one of the hardest team pursuits I’ve done and to say the least I’m super proud of my team and their efforts after an unfortunate crash early on,’’ Drummond said on Facebook. ‘‘I’m proud to be a New Zealander and I’m proud to be second best in the world.’’
It was the sixth time in eight years the New Zealand women have won a medal in the team pursuit at these championships and most of the team are eligible to compete next year.
Earlier in the night, Ellesse Andrews and Emma Cumming, who won gold in the women’s team sprint on Thursday, finished fifth and sixth respectively in the 500m time trial, while Southland sprinter Bradly Knipe was 10th in the keirin, after missing out by one place on a spot in the final.
Individual events start today, with Stewart beginning the defence of his world title in the sixdiscipline omnium, Cumming and Andrews in the sprint, along with the men’s 1000m time trial, men’s points race, women’s individual pursuit and scratch race.