Cycling: 'Best ever' pursuit ride wins NZ silver

Track cycling coach Ron Cheatley reacted with obvious delight as well as surprise following the silver medal-winning ride by the New Zealand pursuit team at the World Cup meeting in Mexico City yesterday.

The New Zealand combination of Tim Carswell, Greg Henderson, Brendan Cameron and Lee Vertongen finished less than one second behind France in the final. The silver medal followed New Zealand's strong start to the event when Aucklander Matt Sinton won the bronze medal in the kilo time trial.

Cheatley rated the performance New Zealand's best teams pursuit performance ever, despite winning the event at a World Cup meeting in Adelaide two years ago.

"France are ranked among the top two in the world in that event and the field here was much stronger than the one in Adelaide," Cheatley said.

"We were never ever going to ride really fantastic times up here at altitude in the endurance events. It's just a struggle to even breathe so you can only look at the results.

"To get to the silver medal status from 16 teams representing most of the top countries in that event is big news."

Cheatley felt the Kiwis were fast closing the gap on the French in the final stages and a gold medal was close at hand.

"We've got a pretty good preparation programme in place but we're certainly not in our real best form at the moment," he said.

"It's quite surprising really, how well we are going considering we've just done base work back home."

Anthony Peden finished ninth in the men's sprints, not his favoured event. Peden, an Australian now riding for New Zealand, will race in his specialty, the keirin, today.

Rawea Greenwood finished a creditable sixth in the 3000m women's individual pursuit. Her time of 3m 44s was five seconds faster than she had ridden before.

"What we wanted to do is try and qualify in all the events for the world championships later in the year and the way we're going it looks like we're going to do it," Cheatley said.

Fiona Ramage also used the sprints as a warm-up, finishing 10th overall from 24 and will contest her No 1 event today, the 500m time trial.

Recovering from a bad dose of the flu, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Glen Thomson rode strongly in the points race to take a lap out of the field early on which he maintained until three laps from the end.

"He rode above himself as to where he's at, at the moment," Cheatley said. "It was a good, gutsy performance by Glen considering he's been so sick."

The team were hopeful of picking up another medal on the final day of the meeting today, with Commonwealth Games champion Sarah Ulmer and Greenwood competing in the women's points race.

Peden in the keirin, the Olympic sprint team of Peden, Sinton and Nathan Seddon and madison competitors Carswell and Henderson will also be in action.- NZPA