Cycling: Road to Sydney track success

By Terry Maddaford

The wheels keep on turning for cycling's queen of the track Sarah Ulmer, but don't be fooled by the big road miles she is putting in both in training and racing.

"I'm a 'trackie' for the next year," said 23-year-old Ulmer, who has been known to dabble on the road and even, none-too-successfully, on mountain bikes.

"My focus is the 3000m pursuit and perhaps the points race at next year's Olympics," she said, relaxing at home in Auckland before returning to the United States later this week for more road racing.

But races like the recent Tour of Idaho - more than double the distance of Ulmer's previous longest race - are key components in her carefully-planned build-up to major carnivals, including this year's world championships and the Olympics.

Ulmer has a schedule of half a dozen tours and one-day races before heading to France, where she will join national coach Ron Cheatley and the New Zealand track squad for two weeks of intensive training.

"We then head to Manchester for another couple of weeks before going to Berlin for the worlds," said Ulmer, who has had a difficult time since winning gold and silver on the track at last year's Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games.

"I went straight to the world road championships and got hammered. Then I crashed off my mountain bike. But now it's all go in the lead-up to the worlds, where I need a top-12 finish to qualify a New Zealand rider for the Olympics."

While many see Ulmer, coached by her father Gary and Cheatley, as a medal prospect in Berlin, she remains realistic in approaching her first senior track championships in four years.

As a junior Ulmer won pursuit gold but managed only tenth in her first senior year.

More recently she rode an out-of-competition pursuit and a 25km points race in Mexico City, in which she stayed with the leading bunch but rarely threatened the placegetters.

"That was hard, real hard," said Ulmer. "Racing at altitude is not easy but it was good experience."

Enjoying the short break at home, Ulmer has continued her training in more familiar surroundings but realises she has plenty of work to do before she returns in November - hopefully with an Olympic qualifying ride comfortably behind her.