Cycling: Mactier ready to challenge Ulmer

1.00pm

ATHENS- Despite less than two years riding the individual pursuit, Australian Katie Mactier is ready for an Olympic Games showdown with New Zealand's gold medal favourite Sarah Ulmer.

"Bring it on, bring it on, bring it on, I'm ready to race," Mactier said ahead of tomorrow's qualifying round at the Olympic Velodrome.

In quick time, the late starter from Melbourne has become one of the powers in the women's 3000m individual pursuit, winning silver at the last two world championships.

She will likely sort out the medals on Sunday with Ulmer and Dutch defending champion Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel, both of whom beat her in the finals of the last two world championships.

Mactier, 28, lost to Ulmer in Melbourne in May and to Zijlaard-van Moorsel in Stuttgart last year after leading both world championship finals with 500m to go, only to fade on the way home.

She has resisted all advice to conserve herself by toning down her flying start, but while she may be ready to race, she's still not sure whether she has her pacing pattern quite right.

"I can't tell you we've nailed it," she said on the cyclingnews.com website.

"A lot of people have gone up to my coaches (John Beasley and Ian McKenzie) and said you've got to perhaps tell her to slow down in the first kilo(metre) and we sit back and think why on earth would we do that, I'm the fastest starter in the world.

"In fact my first 2000m is pretty much the fastest, so our whole aim is to strengthen my third kilo, make me stronger over the last kilo.

"For me it's a very natural thing to come out of the gate at that speed. To try and tell someone to go out at a less intensity, well who says I'm going to be able to recapture that in the last kilo?"

Mactier believes Ulmer's world record three minutes 30.604 seconds will fall to the gold medallist despite widespread fears about wind blasting through the velodrome roof making the track treacherous.

- NZPA