Cycling: Last lap looms for Kiwis

The New Zealand men's cycling team pursuit squad will not be seeking to improve on their current world ranking of sixth at next month's world championships in England, with outgoing coach Ron Cheatley suggesting there may be retirements soon.

Cheatley was keen to take the team to Manchester in his last assignment before ending his coaching career after 21 years.

However, the team of Gary Anderson, Tim Carswell, Brendon Cameron, Lee Vertongen and Greg Henderson were split on whether to try to improve on their Olympic performance, where they finished sixth.

"Half wanted to and half didn't," Cheatley said. "That's disappointing but I can't blame them, it's up to them."

He indicated that veteran Gary Anderson, who turned 33 last week, was keen to continue on to Manchester and was disappointed that some of his team-mates did not share his enthusiasm.

The team have been together for five years and improved their times significantly over that period.

"They were doing 4min 15sec and now they're down to 4min 05sec," Cheatley said.

He was not sure what the future plans the riders had, saying "there could be a couple of retirements in the summer."

A second-tier squad get their chance to impress the national selectors at the Oceania championships in January, but Cheatley warned it could be some time before a new team reached the level of the Olympic squad.

Cheatley will take only a small team to Manchester. Sarah Ulmer, who narrowly missed bronze in the individual pursuit, has already started training; so have Glen Thomson (seventh in the points race) and Anthony Peden, who had a disappointing campaign in the keirin.

Ulmer is trying to organise an early flight home to continue training in Auckland while Peden has already left Sydney and is with family in Newcastle before heading to Wanganui to complete his preparations.

- NZPA