Cycling's 'old man' an inspiration

SYDNEY - Gary Anderson will turn 33 when the New Zealand men's pursuit cycling team begin their Olympic campaign on Monday.

But birthdays, perceived old age and any other outside distraction will be far from the mind of a man entering the world's greatest sporting stage with the same conviction he did as a 21-year-old in 1988.

Anderson's Olympics will probably begin on Saturday in the opening round of the individual pursuit, the event which has his name in the history book as New Zealand's only Olympic cycling medallist.

He won bronze at Barcelona in 1992.

Success is what still drives him and he is unsentimental enough to realise that the team have a better chance of pursuing gold than he alone.

"I find it reasonably easy to combine the two, but if I'm not 100 per cent happy with my form for the individual then I'll be putting it all into the team," Anderson says.

Alongside Lee Vertongen, Brendon Cameron, Tim Carswell and Greg Henderson, the pursuit team are unbeaten this year and have two World Cup titles to their name. And, without Anderson, they covered the 4000m in 4min 05.861sec, faster than any other New Zealand team.

Anderson says that is no mean feat.

"At times in my career I've ridden in teams that I thought we'd go as quick as we can go. Looking back to 1988 and 1992, obviously training and equipment have progressed but it's nice to know this team has been the quickest of any I've been in."

The current squad, a diverse collection of characters from different parts of the country, have gelled together as a tight unit since 1995 under the experienced eye of coach Ron Cheatley. They finished eighth at the Atlanta Olympics and won bronze, without the injured Anderson, at the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games.

Anderson says it is a major bonus at training that the riders have developed an instinctive relationship with each other on the track.

"This team doesn't really need any gelling. We've probably spent in excess of a year living in the same housing as each other over that period with training camps and trips overseas. For these Games, we've been away already for the last 2 1/2 months."

That Anderson has even made it to the Games is remarkable. His life was threatened by a spectacular and life-threatening injury less than two years ago when he punctured his lungs, rather than tyres, and broke ribs in a freak accident.

Trackside medical staff saved his life and he could not travel home to Wanganui for nearly two months.

Seven months later, he stunned everyone by winning another national individual pursuit crown.

Anderson's courage is a source of inspiration for the rest of the team, Cameron says.

"He's definitely the senior player of the team. We always look to him for his experience. He's been there and done that and you can never overlook that."

The five cyclists will be battling for four starting spots in every race at the Games. It is something they have planned for and Cheatley says he will "mix and match" as the team advances.

The "ultimate challenge" for Cheatley is to get all cyclists peaking at the same time. Part of the plan was giving them three cold weeks together, training in Adelaide.

Anderson admitted the team were excited when they took to the ultra-quick Dunc Gray Velodrome, the Sydney venue for Games competition. France and Germany will start as gold-medal favourites next week.

Both went close to going under 4min at the world championships in Berlin last year, while New Zealand were seventh with nearly 4min 11sec.

After recording fast times and winning World Cup titles in Colombia and Malaysia this year, the New Zealanders deserve to be ranked in a second tier alongside Russia, Australia and Ukraine.

" ... we're looking for bigger performances here as far as lifting ourselves to another level," Anderson says.

"We've done a lot of work since the World Cup meets so hopefully it will pay off for us."

- NZPA