Canty cyclist earns world champs selection at 18

country right now, and we’re looking at Olivia being on the back of her and seeing how she progresses over this next few months.

‘‘We look at training history, what they’ve done over the past few months, and look at the last few days, and look to where we think they can get to in future.

‘‘Olivia is that exciting prospect that we think we can do a lot with.’’

The women’s endurance squad includes Waikato-Bay of Plenty rider Racquel Sheath, who put up two superb performances in the bunch races at the national championships, winning two gold medals.

Meanwhile the Olympic hopes of Hayden Roulston and Simon van Velthooven are far from dashed despite missing out on New Zealand’s world championship squad.

Olympic medallists Roulston and van Velthooven were left out of New Zealand’s endurance and sprint squads respectively for the world championships with form proving the decider for both riders.

Young riders Nick Kergozou and Luke Mudgway got the nod ahead of Roulston after impressing in training in the endurance squad.

Van Velthooven, meanwhile, was in a head-to-head battle with Matt Archibald for the fourth spot in the men’s sprint group, but Archibald has edged the Palmerston North man due to versatility and results on the track.

"There’s always difficult choices especially when you’ve got the quality in the men’s pursuit squad in particular,’’ Cycling New Zealand high performance director Mark Elliott said.

‘‘We’ve got 10 guys training here and wanting to narrow that down to six or seven, someone was always going to miss out.

‘‘For [Roulston], he’s come up here with the reason to try and force his way in, and he’s done everything to put himself into that position, but we’ve got a number of other guys who are just going better.

‘‘They haven’t plateaued, they’ve just kept on going and for Hayden, he was behind a little bit and he’s just stayed that same distance. He’s made gains, but not quite enough.’’

For van Velthooven, Elliott said Archibald has the edge in key events right now, and is able to line-up in all three positions in the team sprint. But Elliott insisted that both Roulston and van Velthooven were well within the Olympic mix, with only small gains needed to edge them in front.