It wrapped an excellent haul of seven medals over two world cup competitions.
There were silver and bronze medals earned on the final night in Malaysia.
Samantha Donnelly claimed her first individual world cup medal with third in the women’s four-race omnium.
That was matched by an impressive performance from George Jackson and Tom Sexton, who combined to earn a silver medal in the demanding two-rider madison competition over 200 laps (50km).
Cycling New Zealand high performance director Ryan Hollows was impressed with the strong showing, especially with a number of new groupings in Malaysia.
“It was a great campaign with some new team combinations and new athletes competing strongly at a world cup level,” Hollows said.
“We are happy with the team’s performances over the last two weeks as we build towards the Commonwealth Games and UCI track world championships in October.”
Donnelly enjoyed an impressive ride in her first world cup omnium, starting with ninth in the scratch race and 10th in the tempo race before a strong effort for sixth in the elimination, to place seventh overall after three of the four events.
The Christchurch rider produced a superb display in the final gruelling points race to be the top scorer with 28 points, which moved her into medal contention after she lapped the field.
Having collected the 20 bonus points, she won the third-last sprint and was second in the penultimate sprint to jump to third overall behind winner Anita Stenberg (Norway) and Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands).
“I had a bit of a rough start in Hong Kong and not sure where my form would be, but I have progressed through the two weeks quite nicely,” Donnelly said.
“We took each race as individual races. I really enjoyed the scratch race; I made the right move in the tempo, and the elimination is my favourite race.
‘‘From there I was able to have a bit of fun in the points race. I was super pleased with the podium.”
Jackson and Sexton were superb in the challenging madison, the two-rider event with one rider “in play” at all times, swapping with a hand-sling action.
The Kiwis scored points in 10 of the 20 sprints with four first placings, including the final double-points sprint, to move them to second behind the Netherlands.
“It was a really fast race,’’ Jackson said.
‘‘We opened it up and got some early sprint points. It turned into a race of taking laps — everyone did solo time trial attacks and we were pretty happy to take the second place.”
Earlier, Sam Dakin was edged out on the first round of the individual sprint, while fellow sprinter Olivia King missed out in the keirin repechage.
The team return home for a short break before starting preparations for the Commonwealth Games. — Allied Media
