Cycling: Men with a mission

New Zealand's men's pursuit team have a clearly defined mission at this month's world track cycling championships - defend their top four ranking or suffer the consequences of bad draws at future competitions.

The world track championships are in Bordeaux, France, from April 13-16.

National track coach Terry Gyde said yesterday New Zealand's focus was purely on the teams pursuit and trying to remain in the top four or five.

"If we don't keep that position, it will result in a really bad draw at the [2008] Beijing Olympics," he said.

New Zealand will miss two of the team who finished fourth in last year's world championships - Greg Henderson, who won a silver medal in the scratch race, and Peter Latham, unavailable with Commonwealth Games points race silver medallist Hayden Roulston because of commitments to their professional teams.

The Bordeaux team will be drawn from the Games bronze medal-winning trio of Marc Ryan, Hayden Godfrey and Tim Gudsell and Jason Allen and Rotorua teenager Sam Bewley. Bewley, 18, was in the quartet who won the team pursuit gold at last year's world junior championships in Austria and got his ticket to Bordeaux to develop his potential. "We have picked Bewley just to speed him up a little bit and try and give him some strength and experience at this level," Gyde said.

The pursuit team's result at the Games was disappointing after they had twice beaten reigning world champions Britain in World Cup rounds last year, but Gyde pointed out that the gap had closed considerably.

"To put things into perspective, in 2004 at the Olympics and world championships, we were 13 to 14 seconds behind the winners but in Melbourne, we were just 1 1/2 seconds behind."

Meanwhile, Gyde was unsure if leading New Zealand road racer Joanne Kiesanowski would be available. "We still have to confirm if Jo has got a release from her professional [Univega Pro Swiss] team."

Otago's Alison Shanks would race the individual pursuit only.

Gyde said Shanks, who only took up competition cycling nine months ago, had exceeded expectations at the Commonwealth Games, going 11 seconds faster than she had ever done in missing a bronze medal by 0.5 of a second in the individual pursuit and finishing seventh in the road time trial.

"She is a versatile rider ... we are thrilled with her development and she has come a long way," Gyde said.

- NZPA