Waikato-Bay of Plenty continued its total domination of the women's team pursuit at the national track championships in Invercargill last night.
Sonia Waddell, Rushlee Buchanan and Jamie Neilson dominated from qualifying to finals, winning the event in 3min 30.850sec, nearly 6sec clear of their opponent in the final, Southland.
The time broke the New Zealand record they set in qualifying yesterday morning.
Auckland claimed bronze ahead of West Coast North Island.
It was the first time the event has been held at national championship level.
The Waikato-Bay of Plenty team is coached by Olympic individual pursuit gold medallist Sarah Ulmer, and features two rowing converts in 23-year-old Jamie Neilson - who just two weeks ago won three medals at the rowing nationals in Twizel - and former Olympian Waddell.
"We've actually only ever had two rides together so it feels like it's getting better with every ride and I'm absolutely loving the sport. The culture in cycling is so much fun," Waddell said.
In the other finals raced last night, Canterbury won the women's 500m team sprint final ahead of the Auckland under-19 team, while Canterbury beat Auckland in the men's 750m team sprint final.
The Canterbury team was led by Hayden Godfrey, who will head to Poland with the New Zealand team at the end of the month to defend his omnium world championship title.
It has been a good championship for Otago riders who have won 13 medals - three gold, four silver and six bronze - with one more day of finals to come tonight.
The best performance last night came from Honor Davies and Charlotte Kelly who won a bronze medal in the elite women's team sprint.
Mike Lormans used his experience to win a silver medal in the veteran (2) 6km scratch race and Callum Stanley was second in the under-15 points race.
Veteran Mark Spessot won his second medal at the championships when he captured the bronze medal in the veteran (1) 8km scratch race.
Amy Pearce won her second bronze medal at the championships in the under-17 girls sprint.
• New Zealander Greg Henderson, of Team Columbia, won the second stage of the Tour of Murcia in Spain yesterday, AFP reports. His win meant he took the overall lead from Australian Graeme Brown.
Henderson outsprinted Spaniard Ruben Perez, of Euskaltel-Euskadi, and fellow New Zealander Julian Dean, of Garmin-Slipstream. The stage was shortened because of wind gusts of up to 90kmh lashing the region.
