Kiwis meddling in medals
A stunning performance from debutant Callum Saunders has seen New Zealand claim a trio of medals on the penultimate day of the UCI track cycling World Cup in Hong Kong.
The Kiwis came away with two golds and a silver early yesterday, highlighted by Blenheim rider Saunders, in his first World Cup, outgunning world champion Matthijs Buchli and Olympic champion Jason Kenny to win the keirin final.
With the competition stacked with 11 of the world’s top 20 ranked keirin riders, Saunders placed only third in his heat, which sent him to a winnertake-all repechage, but the Kiwi held off a strong group to win and progress to the semifinal.
There he drew the No 1 spot and while swamped early when the pace went on, he recovered around the outside to edge his way into third place in a bunch sprint to claim the last place in the final.
He again drew the No 1 slot for the decider, with Olympic champion Kenny behind. This proved vital because when Kenny opened up his sprint to push to the lead with two and a half laps remaining, his speed was such that Saunders maintained his place in the trail.
The Kiwi then held off the threat by world No 2-ranked Malaysian Mohd Awang on his outside, and in the final straight Saunders pushed past Kenny for the win, with world champion Buchli flying home for third.
New Zealand’s other gold-medalwinning performance came from Campbell Stewart, with the omnium world champion showing his class by winning the elimination race and controlling the final points race.
The 21-year-old was sixth in the opening scratch race and fourth in the tempo race, where there are points on every lap. He took out his favoured elimination race, where the last rider is eliminated in sprints every two laps until a final two-rider match race.
This left the Kiwi with a two-point lead on madison world champion Roger Kluge going into the final 25km points race, with Stewart biding his time, going with a group to put a lap on the field for the 20-point bonus and winning three of the last five sprints.
He secured the overall honours on
142 points with Kluge on 133 and Switzerland’s Thery Schir third on
125.
The other New Zealand medal of the day went to Nicole Shields and Jesse Hodges, who finished second behind Denmark in the madison.
With no teams able to get a lap on the field, the Kiwi combo showed their strength to win the fourth-to-last sprint, place second in the penultimate sprint and then win the final double points dash to secure second placing.