KEY POINTS:
A young New Zealand cycling squad could cause a ripple in the second round of the World Cup track series beginning tomorrow in Moscow, their coach says.
BikeNZ have sent Westley Gough, Darren Shea, Sam Bewley and Jesse Sergent to Moscow as part of their high performance programme to develop the juniors.
Also in Moscow is experienced Marc Ryan, from Timaru, who won a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games team pursuit and is the reigning national road time trial champion.
Gough, from Waipukurau, Bewley, from Rotorua, Shea, from Christchurch, and Sergent, from Feilding, formed the combination who won the 2005 world junior teams pursuit title in Austria.
This year, Gough and Sergent anchored the pursuit team to a silver at the world junior championships in Belgium and also took the silver and bronze medals, respectively, in the individual pursuit.
National track coach Terry Gyde was disappointed with the sixth-place in the team pursuit by Hayden Godfrey, Peter Latham, Ryan and Gough in the opening round in Sydney last month.
But he said from Moscow today that "without getting too optimistic, I think the young guns may open a few eyes".
"They may upset a few top nations if I can get the (team) balance and order right."
However, the team have had a number of distractions to overcome.
They arrived in Moscow on Tuesday to find a kit bag of equipment had been left behind in Auckland and then discovered the food supplied by local caterers less than acceptable, causing, according to Gyde, "moderate to intense intestinal failure".
However, all these problems have been solved with the Australian team lending some equipment and the International Cycling Union taking over the catering.
Travelling to and from the venue in taxis was also causing some "heart palpitations".
"We had a great day training here," Gyde said.
"We are not too far away -- (I'm) still watching the symptoms of jetlag.
"Today is the critical day. If we pull through today okay, we will go well."
Ryan is first up in the individual pursuit tomorrow night. The team pursuiters go into action on Saturday.
- NZPA
