Cycling: Ulmer takes interesting route to record

By DAVID LEGGAT

Two World Cup victories, a half ironman, wins on the road, being at the centre of a male-female administrative stoush and a trip to the Auckland Pet Expo were all ingredients which went into setting a world record.

Sarah Ulmer is a single-minded cyclist, but not one with a mind closed to everything beyond the tunnel-visioned world of the velodrome track.

When she became the world's fastest woman on two wheels in the 3000m individual pursuit at Melbourne this week, the 28-year-old Aucklander reinforced what had been suspected for some time: that she is a member of an elite group - New Zealand athletes with a realistic chance of an Olympic gold medal in August.

Four years ago, Ulmer finished fourth at the Sydney Games, an agonising 0.08s outside the bronze medal, having led Briton Yvonne McGregor from the start until the final burst for the line.

Since then she has become one of the powers on the World Cup circuit.

This year, she has won the IP titles at Aguacalientes, Mexico in March, clocking 3m 37.697s, and at the Dunc Grey velodrome in Sydney a fortnight ago when she whipped round in 3m 31.157s, just 0.3s slower than Dutch maestro Leontien Zijlaard-Van Moorsel's world record.

"I was surprised by the time, but I am going to have to go faster than that, so it is just a stepping stone," Ulmer said afterwards.

So she did, her sizzling 3m 30.604s in the qualifying round at the world championships on Thursday eclipsing Zijlaard-Van Moorsel's 3m 30.816s established at the Sydney Olympics.

She is just New Zealand's second world recordholder on the track, after Anthony Cuff, who set a new mark in the flying kilo in Mexico 24 years ago.

Ulmer's year has been an interesting mix.

It began with her teaming up with former world cross-country champion Melissa Moon and triathlete Shanelle Barrett to win the women's race at the Port of Tauranga half ironman in January.

In February, Ulmer contested the Geelong International women's road tour, picking up a stage win.

March included being a central figure in festivities at Auckland's Bike Day Out and a trip to the city's Pet Expo, at which more attention was focused on her two boxers, Georgie and Churchill, than their owner.

She won a routine title at the national track championships in Manukau in the IP, her 3m 38.939s in the qualifying round breaking the New Zealand record after a month off the track.

At the same championships, Ulmer found herself embroiled in a dispute when officials pulled the pin on the Waikato centre's bid to have Ulmer race as part of the men's team pursuit.

As there was no women's teams pursuit, Ulmer wanted to use the event as part of her training for the Mexico World Cup a week later. Bike NZ officials said as the rules precluded women in a "men's-only event we would be breaking the rules".

Ulmer was disappointed, but scarcely lost any sleep over it.

"I appreciate that it is a guys' event and I am obviously not a guy. You can't make rules for one person and not the others."

Back on the road early in April, Ulmer won the women's race in the Avanti 100km Flyer in Taupo before turning her attention to the track.

Athens will be her third Olympics. She was seventh at the Atlanta Games in 1996, then picked up gold and silver in the IP and the points races respectively at the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games two years later.

She repeated the IP gold at Manchester two years ago, when she was New Zealand's flagbearer at the opening ceremony.

Choosing the athlete to perform that is the prerogative of the team's chef de mission. It is extremely rare that an athlete is asked twice, but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Dave Currie might opt for Ulmer again.

For certain, Ulmer has made the early running for the Halberg Award's Sportswoman of the Year.

Although Zijlaard-Van Moorsel, the defending Olympic champion, lost any chance of retaining her world crown in the first round yesterday, she looms as Ulmer's most daunting opponent in Athens.

The 35-year-old from the small Dutch town of Boekel stands among the finest riders, a multiple world champion on the road and the track.

But she is just a few weeks into working on the track after spending much of the past few months competing on the road. In yesterday's first round, she clocked 3m 36.306s, leaving her out of medal contention last night. However Zijlaard-Van Moorsel isn't ready to hand over her Olympic crown, despite this week's setbacks.

"I know I can break Sarah's record in Athens. I will train hard for that," she said.

A lot can happen in the next couple of months and no one knows that better than Ulmer, who was fourth at last year's worlds. The spectre of a psychological roundhouse right to her rivals ahead of Athens has been raised by Bike NZ head track coach Kurt Innes.

"Hopefully, the other girls are going 'Oh boy, what are we going to do to catch her?"' he said.

The giant strides she has taken since the last world championships have elevated her to genuine gold medal contention in Athens. She will be ready for a resurgent Zijlaard-Van Moorsel in Greece - just as the great Dutchwoman will be looking over her shoulder at the amiable Aucklander.