Cycling New Zealand has appointed Tim Carswell to the role of Head Coach for the Grassroots Trust Waikato Bay of Plenty Hub.
Carswell has coached for Cycling New Zealand previously including three Olympic Games, and multiple Commonwealth Games and World Championships.
Since first stepping into a New Zealand coaching role at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, Carswell has guided riders and teams to 19 World Championship medals as well as three medals at the Beijing and London Olympics. Other career highlights include guiding the men's team pursuit first to under the four minute barrier in 2008, and taking the New Zealand men's team pursuit to its first world title in 2015.
The former Commonwealth Games medallist was the head coach at Cycling New Zealand from 2007-2011 before taking up the role as coach at the UCI World Cycling Centre in Switzerland from 2012-2014.
He took a break from international coaching after the Rio Olympics but returned part-time in 2018 to lead the New Zealand women’s endurance squads to the elite and junior track World Championships.
“Stepping back into a full-time coaching role with the Grassroots Trust Hub Programme for Cycling New Zealand offers a new challenge,” said Carswell.
“We have some outstanding riders in the programme already and some very talented young cyclists coming through, so I am sure there will be more great results to come in the future. The depth of our Hub riders is evident in the fact we were able to register two development trade team to ride at the recent Tissot UCI Track World Cup held recently in Cambridge.”
Cycling New Zealand’s Subway Performance Hubs form a network around the country to help sustain the future success of high-performance cycling in New Zealand by increasing both the quality and quantity of young riders feeding into the elite tier of the sport.
Carswell said that the quality of riders in the programme was highlighted recently when Grassroots Trust Hub rider Finn Fisher Black broke the world record for the junior 3000m individual pursuit and SIT Southern Hub rider Corbin Strong won the national points race title which led to his late inclusion in the Vantage elite team for the World Championships next week.
Graeme Hunn, Cycling New Zealand’s Athlete Development Manager was pleased to be able to make the appointment.
“Tim has made a huge contribution to cycling since 2002 and we are pleased to have his experience and depth of talent back in the fold. We are confident he will continue to build on the strong work done to date.”
Carswell will be based at the Cycling New Zealand offices at the Avantidrome in Cambridge.