Team New Zealand announced its final roster for the UCI World Track Cycling Championships
Team New Zealand has announced its final squad for the UCI World Track Cycling Championships scheduled in Melbourne this year.
A team of 20 riders has been announced today by Bike NZ and it will be the biggest team sent by New Zealand to ride the contest.
BikeNZ High Performance Director Mark Elliott noted, "The size of the team is largely because of their performances in the World Cups and the Oceania Championships where we have qualified a record number of spots".
The team is currently focussing at the Melbourne event and it is the first time that New Zealand will participate in all the four male and female categories of the event.
Mark is content with the team’s selection and is optimistic that his side will be successful at the contest.
He has briefed that the team will also ride the London Olympics and the side will fine-tune for the mega event at the race.
"Some of our riders are still gunning for qualification for London, so they will be all guns blazing”.
"And we are also competing in some of the traditional world championship events that are not part of the Olympic programme".
A total number of 20 cyclists to represent the team include,
Male sprint: Matt Archibald, Eddie Dawkins, Ethan Mitchell, Simon Van Velthooven and Sam Webster.
Female sprint: Natasha Hansen and Katie Schofield.
Female endurance: Rushlee Buchanan, Gemma Dudley, Lauren Ellis, Jo Kiesanowski, Jaime Nielsen and Alison Shanks.
Male endurance: Shane Archbold, Sam Bewley, Alex Frame, Aaron Gate, Westley Gough, Peter Latham and Marc Ryan.
Alex Frame is the new entrant at the men’s team after his marvellous performance during the last year’s junior event.
He grabbed two gold medals during the previous edition of the junior world championships in Moscow and is optimistic to continue his performance in Melbourne.
A total number of five team pursuiters have been announced by the team to make it up for the unavailable Jesse Sergent.
Another new inclusion in the team is Matt Archibald. The Southland sprinter was impressive during this year’s World Cup.
It will be interesting to see if Team New Zealand can raise its performance to the next level in the coming event.
Tags: