Hawke's Bay cyclist Regan Gough booked his trip to the Rio Olympics on Friday.
That was the belief of his father, Waipukurau-based Infracon Roading Company manager Dean Gough, after he watched his son's magnificent contribution to the New Zealand men's 4000m team pursuit's gold medal-winning effort on day two of the UCI Track World Championships in Paris live on television. The Kiwis half-a-second victory over Great Britain was Cycling New Zealand's first gold in this event after bronzes were their previous best in 2009, '10, '12 and last year. "I know I'm the proudest dad ... not only in Hawke's Bay but the entire country," Dean Gough said yesterday. "When you consider Regan wasn't expecting to be in the team and only got told of his promotion 12 hours before the final it was pretty exciting," the 18-year-old's father recalled.
Gough, the Hawke's Bay Secondary Schools Sportsperson of the Year in 2013 and last year, got the call from the Kiwis endurance coach Tim Carswell when double Olympian Marc Ryan complained about a niggling back injury after the semifinal win against Switzerland. Gough's selection meant the average age of the Kiwi team in the final was 20.
The New Zealanders went up early before the British fought back to take a slender advantage before dropping a rider. With the Kiwis dropped to three riders also and when Frame slipped off the back, it looked if the British would prevail. But their third counting rider also dropped back as the young Cantabrian pushed hard for the line, finishing only a length behind his teammates.
They won in an astonishing 3:54.088, starting with a 1:03 for the first kilometre and following with splits of 56s, 57 and 57 to smash the national record by more than a second and finish half a second ahead of the Brits.