KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Greg Henderson and Hayden Roulston finished ninth in the Madison final as the World Cup track cycling meeting ended for the year in Beijing last night.
The New Zealand pair were more prominent than their performance in previous weekend's World Cup leg in Sydney, gaining six points in the exciting 40km track race.
France took out the Madison gold ahead of Great Britain, who included world and Olympic pursuit champion Bradley Wiggins, and Ukraine with the three teams putting a lap on the rest of the field.
New Zealand gained points in two sprints - winning the third sprint and were fourth in the fifth sprint - and raced strongly to the lead with 25 laps remaining in a major effort to put a lap on the field and give themselves a chance of the medals.
They were chased down and had to be content with ninth place overall in a event, where the two riders must interchange with a hand-to-hand slingshot action.
Overall, New Zealand advanced to eighth place on the World Cup rankings after two meetings with two further rounds to be staged next year to confirm qualification for the Beijing Olympics.
Best of the New Zealand riders on World Cup rankings currently is the men's team pursuit ranked second, individual pursuiter Mark Ryan third, Henderson third in the points race, Alison Shanks eighth in the individual pursuit and Joanne Kiesanowski 12th in the women's scratch race and Henderson and Roulston 13th in the Madison.
The remaining UCI World Cup Olympic qualifying events are in Los Angeles in January and Ballerup and Denmark in February.
- NZPA
