Cycling: Shanks, Sergent favourites for awards

Dunedin's Alison Shanks and Feilding's Jesse Sergent will be favourites to win respectively, the inaugural national women's and men's track rider of the year award.

Former world individual pursuit champion Shanks tops the list of finalists for the women's track award which includes Ashburton's Lauren Ellis and Te Awamutu's Rushlee Buchanan, the reigning national road champion.

Commonwealth Games individual pursuit gold medallist Shanks, Ellis and Buchanan formed the pursuit team that set a world mark and finished third at this year's world track championships at Copenhagen.

Sergent, won silver medals at this year's world championships and Commonwealth Games.

Other contenders for the title are big sprinter Eddie Dawkins (Invercargill) and young gun Tom Scully (Invercargill), who had a fine track season earlier this year before injury ruled him out of Commonwealth Games contention.

The Road Rider of the Year finalists have been announced previously. The men's finalists are New Zealand's three top professionals: Hayden Roulston, Julian Dean and Greg Henderson.

The women's list include Linda Villumsen, who took a silver medal in the time trial at the Commonwealth Games, as well as Wanganui's Catherine Cheatley, the United States No 1, and Christchurch's Joanne Kiesanowski.

The awards will be presented on January 7 in Christchurch in conjunction with the national road championships.

Finalists for the 2010 New Zealand road and track riders of the year:

Track rider of the year

Men - Jesse Sergent, Eddie Dawkins, Tom Scully.

Women - Alison Shanks, Lauren Ellis, Rushlee Buchanan.

Best emerging talent:

George Bennett, Sam Webster, Stephanie McKenzie.

Road rider of the year

Men - Greg Henderson, Julian Dean, Hayden Roulston.

Women - Catherine Cheatley, Joanne Kiesanowski,

Linda Villumsen.

Nominees for People's Choice Award: Hayden Roulston, Jack Bauer, George Bennett, Gordon McCauley, Julian Dean.