Cycling: Ulmer to face one of main rivals

New Zealand's Sarah Ulmer will get an early glimpse at one of her main rivals for the Olympic individual pursuit gold medal when she faces Dutch legend Leontien Ziljaard-Van Moorsel in qualifying at the track cycling world championships in Melbourne today.

Ulmer, the Commonwealth champion, and Ziljaard-Van Moorsel, the reigning Olympic and world champion, have been drawn in the last heat. Setting a qualifying time to make tomorrow's gold medal rideoff is the priority for Ulmer, but the heat will also give her a chance to measure herself against the 34-year-old pacesetter in women's track and road cycling.

Ulmer was just three-tenths of a second outside Ziljaard-Van Moorsel's world record in the Sydney round of the World Cup series in May.