NZ men’s pursuit cyclists disqualified
Cycling New Zealand are owning up to an embarrassing blunder which cost their track cyclists a shot at a bronze medal.
The men’s 4000m team pursuit were disqualified from their third place race at the velodrome in Brisbane on Thursday night after one of their bikes was outside of specifications during their qualifying run.
‘‘We have regulations that pertain to the setup that the bike can be configured in and one of our bikes was found to be noncompliant for the front end of the bike,’’ a disappointed CNZ high performance director Martin Barras said.
‘‘It was very, very close to the mark, but it was a failing on our part. I have to be blunt about that and we have to deliver material that is in compliance with the rules.’’
Barras said it was the height from the elbow pads on the ‘‘cockpit’’ of the bike to the top of the grip on the handlebars being above the 100 millimetre regulations. ‘‘The difference was about 105 or 106mm, when it should be 100mm.’’
It was not revealed which of Regan Gough, Nick Kergozou, Campbell Stewart or Tom Sexton’s bike it was, but it had been checked yesterday morning by the team. It failed a pre-race inspection, but was modified by the CNZ mechanics, who thought it was good to go, but it failed its post-race inspection.
Barras was unsure what exactly had happened to make it non-compliant after it had been compliant at March’s world championships in the exact same setup. Sometimes the padding on the elbow pads could compress, which elongated the gap to outside regulations.
The bikes are setup to the very millimetre to ensure optimal performance.
The bikes also get disassembled and reassembled quite often, but Barras did not want to make any excuses. It was the first time Barras had experienced such a rules breach with one of his teams.
‘‘It probably forms a big part of my name, but yeah, it is [embarrassing].’’
Barras said it made for a very difficult talk to their four riders.
‘‘It’s tough to explain the sort of conversation you have with your riders after something like that, which is through no fault of their own. ‘‘It was a particularly painful apology to make to the four guys considering they had a very good ride too.’’
The quartet were comfortably ahead of bronze medal race rivals Canada in qualifying.
Despite that, Barras said they took the news well, perhaps too well. ‘‘It’s interesting. ‘S*** happens’ [was their response], but I don’t particularly accept that. They were being a bit too nice to us I think. This is a team failing, no other way to describe it.’’
‘‘This is a team failing, there is no other way to describe it.’’
Martin Barras, CNZ high performance director.
Neither going out hard nor coming home in a rush was quite enough for the medals for New Zealand in the men’s triathlon at the Commonwealth Games.
Ryan Sissons charged home late in the run leg to finish fifth in a race won by South Africa’s Henri Schoeman, while youngster Tayler Reid led at the start of the run leg only to fade to 11th.
Starting in a downpour on the Gold Coast yesterday, the 21-yearold Reid was second out of the water, on the ankles of England’s Alistair Brownlee after battling atrocious conditions in the 750m swim.
He was then part of a six-man leading group in the cycling section, also featuring Brownlee’s brother Jonathan, that headed into the 5km run leg with a lead of 28 seconds, and he headed out in front on foot.
Schoeman quickly shot out to a significant lead as Reid drifted back and Sissons moved forward and the South African claimed gold ahead of Australia’s Jacob Birtwhistle, with Scotland’s Marc Austin third while Reid was the next-best Kiwi ahead of Tony Dodds (16th).
‘‘I needed about five or 10 more seconds,’’ said Sissons, who was just five seconds behind Austin.
‘‘Still pretty happy – I executed how I wanted to, went as hard in the run as I could. That last little surge from Jake [Birtwhistle] who ended up getting second was just a bit too much for me.
‘‘I couldn’t have done much more – I went as hard as I could in that run to close the gap.’’
He was right – his last 2.5km lap was slower only than Birtwhistle. ‘‘Not the place on the podium I wanted, but pretty bloody close.’’
Reid said he was ‘‘gutted’’ he couldn’t hold on for a medal. ‘‘I thought my legs would hold on a bit longer than that.’’
Meanwhile, Andrea Hewitt knew her hopes of a medal had disappeared after 200 metres in the women’s event.
The three-strong Kiwi contingent, headed by veteran Hewitt, couldn’t handle the pace set by eventual winner Flora Duffy of Bermuda at Southport on the Gold Coast as the first medals were handed out.
Nicole van der Kaay was the best of the Kiwis in seventh place, 1min 41secs behind Duffy while Rebecca Spence was 10th.