New Zealand cycling leaders today put aside any disappointment felt at the individual pursuit being cut from the track programme for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
• Shanks in limbo as Olympics axes her race [1]
Instead, they voiced confidence that BikeNZ's stable of riders can shine under a revised programme which has also seen the men's and women's points races and men's madison eliminated.
The programme, proposed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) and endorsed today by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), includes men's and women's competition in the individual sprint, team sprint, keirin, team pursuit and the five-race omnium event.
Cycling had seven track events for men and three for women at the 2008 Beijing Games. Today's changes were designed to make sure male and females compete in an equal number of events in London. While New Zealand riders have traditionally fared well in the individual pursuit, BikeNZ high performance director Mark Elliott said the sport was well placed to adapt to the changes, particularly with the addition of a women's team pursuit.
As well, Christchurch's Hayden Godfrey won the world championship crown in the five-discipline omnium years ago.
Three of New Zealand's five Olympic medals have come in the individual pursuit, with Gary Anderson winning bronze at Barcelona in 1992, Sarah Ulmer's world record breaking gold medal at Athens in 2004 and Hayden Roulston's silver medal at Beijing.
"It's disappointing from the viewpoint of endurance track that the blue ribbon event of individual pursuit has gone along with the points race and madison," Elliott said.
"That said, the even gender split is commendable and BikeNZ is well placed in regards to the women's team pursuit with our team picking up the silver medal at the world championships this year.
"Our power to podium programme has identified a group of talented women and we have been developing them for a year now.
"It's a disappointment for Alison Shanks as the reigning world champion, but let's remember that we still have the world championships in all of these disciplines every year. And for us to have a successful teams pursuit programme we must have world class individual pursuit riders.
"The focus for us now will be to have balance across world championship outcomes and our Olympic outcomes.
"The addition of the women's team pursuit opens more options for more women in our sport to compete at the highest level." Shanks was hit hard by the decision.
She has long been motivated by the goal of replicating Ulmer's achievement at Athens in 2004.
"I guess it has been on the cards for a few weeks now but when the final news was announced it was still fairly devastating," she told Radio Sport.
Shanks said she would continue to concentrate on the pursuit, with next year's Commonwealth Games in India and three world championships being held before the 2012 Olympics.
Elliott said details of the five-event omnium had not been finalised, with the current make-up of a 200m time trial, 5km scratch race, 3km individual pursuit, 15km points race and 1km time trial, being reviewed.
The UCI is to study changes to the omnium so that it becomes more of an endurance event.
Elliott said his coaches already had some endurances riders well placed to mount a serious campaign in the omnium.
"For us it's a matter of getting our heads firmly around the new Olympic programme and preparing for it. In that regard our team has much of the planning already done to take these options into consideration.
"And at the same time we still have all of these traditional endurance events on the programmes for the Commonwealth Games next year and the world championships every year, so they will still be important in our track programme."
Links:
[1] http://www.odt.co.nz/sport/cycling/85320/cycling-shanks-limbo-olympics-axes-her-race