KEY POINTS:
Julian Dean, who competes in the Tour de France starting this weekend, will spearhead the New Zealand road cycling team at next month's Beijing Olympics.
Dean has been named in the road race team.
He is one of six cyclists named by the New Zealand Olympic selectors today to complete the cycling team for Beijing.
Dean will be joined by fellow professionals Tim Gudsell and Glenn Chadwick in the men's road relay, with Jo Kiesanowski competing in the women's road race
Two riders have been added to the New Zealand track team, Timaru's Peter Latham in the men's team pursuit and Catherine Cheatley, now based in Invercargill, in the points race.
Dean (Rotorua) has been a leading professional for the last decade with teams such as US Postal Service - with Lance Armstrong - CSC and Credit Agricole for whom he completed the 2004, 2006 and 2007 Tour de France races before moving to Team Garmin Chipotle this year.
The 33-year-old is looking forward to competing in his fourth Olympic Games and building on the outstanding 15th place he achieved at Athens in 2004.
"I've completed my plan for the Olympics and hope that the Tour de France really sets me up well for Beijing which will be a really tough test," he said.
"It's always an honour to pull on the New Zealand singlet and so to go to my fourth Olympics is very special."
Te Awamutu's Gudsell, 24, like Dean, competes for a leading European-based team - Francaise des Jeux - and is a key workhorse for the team. He has enjoyed a successful track career as a member of the New Zealand teams that won the World Cup in 2005 in Manchester and the bronze medal in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. He also competed at Athens.
Chadwick, 31, is from Taranaki but now splits his time between Belgium and his professional base in San Francisco as a member of Team Type 1.
A noted climber, he and has been in outstanding form this year with victories in a stage event on the US Pro Tour. It is his first Olympics.
Kiesanowski, 29 and of Christchurch, is New Zealand's highest ranked female cyclist, now inside the top 30. She has been in excellent form for Team Tibco in US with a number of stage wins to her credit in her six-year professional career in Europe and the US. She was a highly creditable 17th in Athens and rode into a top 15 at last year's world championships.
Kiesanowski is the only New Zealand rider in the women's road race after New Zealand lost their ranking points in two events that were recently down-graded. New Zealand could have had three women's road riders.
"It was disappointing. We had entered the events because they are listed international races but apparently the minimum five international teams did not front and the races were downgraded only recently as a result," Bike NZ high performance director Mark Elliott said.
Te Awamutu's Latham, 24, has been a regular part of the BikeNZ pursuit squad who were third in the 2006 Commonwealth Games and fourth place in last year's world championships.
A bronze medallist at the world junior championships in the time trial in 2005, Latham has been in impressive form recently in Europe, winning a number of French regional races.
Cheatley, 25, won a bronze medal in last year's world championships before a leg operation potentially wrecked her 2008 season and cost her automatic qualification for Beijing. She has returned to fine form on the road for her US-based Cheerwine team with a recent win in Philadelphia.
"She has shown that she is back to her best and at the same time has been on a track-based training programme so that if selected, she will be in the best possible shape to perform strongly in the points race in Beijing," Elliott said.
- NZPA
