Cycling: Southland snare second track title

Southland claimed another elite men's title at the national track cycling championships in Invercargill last night, with Eddie Dawkins dominating the men's sprint final.

Dawkins took on arch-rival Simon van Velthooven (West Coast North Island) in the best of three sprint final but needed just the first two races to claim victory.

"I've done a lot of hard work, a lot of speed work and I said before tonight, I'm not going to let anyone take me to three rides in the final so I stuck to my word," Dawkins said.

"On the day I had better form, better legs and a better frame of mind than Simon."

As expected, both Dawkins and van Velthooven easily progressed through their semifinals earlier in the night, with the 19-year-old Dawkins winning two straight against Auckland's Damien Wiseman, as did 20-year-old van Velthooven against Canterbury's Adam Stewart.

Van Velthooven will get a chance to redeem himself against Dawkins in Saturday night's keirin, where the Manawatu rider is the reigning champion.

In the women's event, defending champion Natasha Hansen from Canterbury went through both the morning quarterfinals and evening semis in dominant form.

She won two straight against Otago's Honor Davies in the semifinal before doing the same in the final against teammate Penny Day.

"In every race I pretty much pushed myself and stretched my lead a bit, but I was thinking it was better to be safe than sorry," said the 19-year-old.

Today promises to be the most exciting day yet at the championships, with the men's and women's individual pursuiters in action.

Beijing World Cup gold medallists Alison Shanks and Jesse Sergent are likely to come up against some stern competition, with the women's division especially competitive with up to a dozen riders pushing for qualification into the top four.

Both Sergent and Shanks will be looking to break New Zealand records today. Shanks will want to better the mark she set at last year's championships, while Sergent will have his eye on the mark set by Olympic silver medallist Hayden Roulston last year.

Shanks (Otago) is expected to be pushed hard by Kaytee Boyd (Auckland) and Lauren Ellis (Ashburton), with the riders also gunning for places in the women's team pursuit for this month's UCI world championships in Poland.

The track championships end on Saturday night.

- NZPA