Source: Radio New Zealand
NZ women’s team pursuit of Bryony Botha, Samantha Donnelly, Prudence Fowler and Emily Shearman. SWPix
An under-strength New Zealand’s women’s team pursuit combination overcame the odds to claim their second track cycling World Cup gold medal in two weeks.
After powering to victory in Hong Kong a week earlier, the hopes of Kiwi repeat in Nilai, Malaysia suffered when star performer Ally Wollaston had to return to her professional road racing duties in Europe.
Then team member Prudence Fowler was laid low with ill-health, forcing a change of tactics.
Fowler moved to the unaccustomed role of starting, and having led for the first few laps, she pulled off, with the remaining three riders – Bryony Botha, Samantha Donnelly and Emily Shearman – negotiating the final 12 laps of the 4000m journey.
Those tactics were enough for New Zealand to top qualifying in 4:16.917 and winning their first-round clash against the Netherlands, recording the fastest time of 4:10.857 to move into the gold medal clash with China.
The teams were level at 1000m before the Kiwi combination built a slim lead over the middle stages before powering clear over the final kilometre to win by nearly two seconds.
“We had to be quite adaptable with Pru (Fowler) not feeling super-good throughout the first part of the week,” Botha said.
“We changed our strategy with Pru doing the first three or four laps of the TP, and the rest of us taking it from there. It went well considering Pru is not our usual first-wheel starter, and we did not have Ally with us either. With only four riders, we had to make do with what we had in the situation.
“We were actually quite surprised. We went into it with no expectations on ourselves and just wanted to do a ride that we were proud of – and I think we can definitely be proud.”
The men’s team pursuit had mixed fortunes, with the gold medallists from Hong Kong last week again topping qualifiers in 3:51.722 ahead of China and Italy.
However, the quartet of Marshall Erwood, George Jackson, Daniel Morton, Tom Sexton were upset by France in the first round to be edged out of medal contention.
Earlier Keegan Hornblow was pipped for a medal in the elimination race, edged out in the sprint for the podium with the big field whittled down to four riders.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
