Cycling: Silver for men's pursuiters and sprinters

The silver medal winning sprint team of Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Eddie Dawkins. Photo / Getty

Pleased but pensive summed up the mood of the New Zealand men's pursuiters and sprinters as they contemplated silver World Cup medals last night at the Cambridge velodrome.

Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Eddie Dawkins lost their team sprint by 0.289s to Germany; Piet Bulling, Cam Karwowski, Alex Frame and Regan Gough lost their team pursuit by 4.602s to Australia.

The consensus? It was a chance to consolidate, ruminate and channel their energy into the hunt for Rio glory.

"We came out and gave another polished performance," Webster said of their 43.419s time, in which he hauled back 0.047s seconds as the No.2 rider.

"We did a similar time to qualifying which was quite good, given our levels of fatigue.

"It's a performance to be proud of. The home crowd were slamming on the boards and trying to get us home. We're eternally thankful to have a chance to show the crowd what we're made of."

Webster said the focus now turns to the world championships at London in March.

"We need to have a Christmas of not over-indulging but working bloody hard. That's what we've done in the past and it'll get us right for that event."

"I didn't come here to get second," Dawkins added. "It's not a New Zealand thing to do. Every time that happens I feel disappointed, and the things you could have done better start going through your head.

"But we can all agree it's a step up from Colombia [the World Cup result] - 14 places to be specific. We've only got one more to go."

Gough said the Australian team pursuiters were treating this as their 'world championships' in clocking 3m 53.010s, so they knew how formidable the task was.

"We had three solid rides we can take home to build our confidence."

"The last three months we've done records within the team and the next three months we'll be doing that again," Bulling added, in reference to the deficit to make up.

"We'll be fine, such a young team can only get better."

"These boys have some serious horsepower," Karwowski said of his gradual introduction into the elite level. "We're making great gains in the centralised programme so bring on the next eight months. There's a lot of depth and plenty of riders waiting in the wings to step up. You've got to prove your worth every day."