Stewart ready for elite ranks
Having conquered the pinnacles of junior cycling, Campbell Stewart believes he is now ready tackle the world’s elite.
Picking up the Halberg’s emerging talent award on Thursday night was a fitting way to mark his transition from promising young athlete to regular competitor at the top level.
It was the second year the 18-year-old from Palmerston North, coached by Mike Mcredmond, was a finalist for the award, missing out to pole vaulter Eliza Mccartney last year.
But with another swag of agegrade titles to his name there was no denying Stewart this time, beating out fellow finalists Finn Bilous (snow sports), Dylan Schmidt (trampoline) and Maynard Peel (cycling BMX).
‘‘I came back for the second time and was able to bring it home this year which was cool,’’ Stewart said.
Along with the award, he picked up $10,000 from Sky Television to help him work towards his Olympic aspirations.
Five of the last seven winners of the award were in the Rio Olympics team and that was something Stewart hoped to emulate.
‘‘It is pretty cool to see where they have gone and hopefully I will be able to go down the same track and do something similar.’’
The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 remain the dream for Stewart, but first he hoped to crack the New Zealand World Championship team in Hong Kong in April.
He was also eyeing up a place in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games team.
Stewart believed his best chance to make the squad was in the team pursuit, but he was also working on the omnium and the madison.
His crowning achievement in 2016 came at the Junior World Track Cycling Championship in Switzerland in July where he became New Zealand’s most successful rider at the event.
He won gold in the prestigious omnium title and the team pursuit, along with a silver in the madison.
Combined with the two golds he won at the event in 2015, it lifted him ahead of previous Kiwi record holder Sam Webster who won three golds.
At the national track cycling championships in Invercargill earlier this month, Campbell proved he was up to the task of taking on New Zealand’s elite riders as he claimed the madison title with Waikato’s Dylan Kennett and was third in the men’s 30km points race.
He was named junior men’s rider of the year at the event.
Among Stewarts other awards are two Manawatu Secondary Schools supreme sportsman of the year gongs and a Manawatu junior sportsman of the year title - and he will be the hot favourite to defend that title at the Manawatu Sports Awards in March.
Stewart made his UCI elite track cycling World Cup debut in Hong Kong in January 2016.
His desire for more regular selections for World Cup squads this year appears to be coming through with him picked for both the Cali, Colombia and Los Angles, United States stops of the series later this month. In Cali he will ride in the team pursuit and the madison, while in Los Angles he will take part in the omnium and the madison.
He said the omnium has changed for world cup events this year, which will make it more challenging.
The event usually features six events over two days, but it will now be contested over four events on one day.