Cycling: Elite of world's women coming to NZ

By Suzanne McFadden

Six of the world's top 10 women's cyclists will ride in New Zealand's first World Cup race.

World champions from the last three years will line up together next month in a field of 120 riders, 95 of them from overseas. Race director Stephen Cox has assembled the field of stars for both the four-day Street-Skills Cycle Classic then the World Cup race in Hamilton.

Heading the field is reigning world champion Diana Ziliute, of Lithuania. One of her national team-mates, Zita Urbonaite, is also ranked in the world's top 10.

The other riders coming here who finished in single-figure places at last year's world championships are Italian Alessandra Capellotto, the 1997 world champion, Gunn Rita Dahle, of Norway, Australian Anna Wilson and German Hanka Kupfernagel.

Kupfernagel has an outstanding career record - she won three world junior titles in the early 1990s, was ranked No 1 in the world in 1997 and finished third in both the road race and the time trial at last year's world championships.

She will race in the Waikato with her professional trade team, Greenery-Hawk.

Eight of the 17 international teams entered are professional. The 1996 world champion, Barbara Heeb, is bringing her Swiss trade team, Equipe Nurnberger-Emmi.

New Zealander Jacinta Coleman will ride for a national academy team in the four-day tour, but for the World Cup she will join the Swiss team she is contracted to, GS Mazza-Tege.

Among the national teams who will ride are Lithuania, Slovakia, South Africa, Japan, Norway, Britain, and the Netherlands. Australia is sending four squads.

Commonwealth Games medallists Susy Pryde and Sarah Ulmer will ride together in a New Zealand team, which will also include Americans Dede Demet and Kendra Wenzel.

The Street-Skills tour, which takes a detour to Tokoroa this year, starts on March 9, with the 102km World Cup race on an inner-city circuit in Hamilton on March 14.