Cycling: Gough's bronze boilover

Westley Gough. Photo / Supplied

Waipukurau cyclist Westley Gough caused a minor boilover when he broke Australia's stranglehold on the individual pursuit at the world track cycling champs.

After qualifying fourth with a personal best of 4m 17.001s, Gough went even faster in the ride for bronze, clocking 4m 16.945s to run down the highly regarded Rohan Dennis.

It meant that Gough lowered his personal best at the championships by .775s and helps his cause when it comes to selection for the team pursuit in London this year.

"I'm sure it helps a little bit. The team pursuit is a different event, but what today shows is progression and I'm pretty happy with that.

"I knew it was going to be a tough race, but I'm really, really happy to come away with the bronze medal. I thought I had a little bit more in me [from the qualifying time] but I wasn't sure how much.

"My goal was to go out a bit faster than this morning and I did that. I rode the same pace through the middle of the ride and still managed to come home strongly."

Indeed, Gough was close to 1.5s behind Dennis going into the fourth and final kilometre. Coach Tim Carswell was pacing out his deficit track side, so Gough was acutely aware of the ground he had to make up.

"I knew I was down and had a bit of work to do coming into that last kilometre and luckily I managed to push hard to the line."

Gough started taking considerable chunks out of Dennis, which must have set the pulses of his parents, Rod and Wendy, racing in the stands. With a lap to go he had seized back the initiative.

It was New Zealand's fourth medal of the champs - all bronze - equalling the four they won last year at Apeldoorn and in 2010 at Copenhagen. It is Gough's third world championship medal, but first as an individual rider.

"This rates really, really highly," Gough said. "The team pursuit was the main goal here and I only did two training sessions coming into the individual pursuit so to do a PB in front of nearly a home crowd is great."

The gold was won by Australian Michael Hepburn, with compatriot and world record-holder Jack Bobridge taking silver.