The New Zealand track cycling team produced their best-ever performance at the Pari9s Olympic Games with two medals on the final day, pushing the total to five for the Games.
This bettered the previous best of three medals. Today’s highlights were a remarkable gold medal to Ellesse Andrews in the women’s sprint, and outstanding bronze medal to Ally Wollaston in the women’s omnium.
Andrews’ success brought her personal tally the three medals for Paris – gold medals in the keirin and sprint along with the silver medal in the team sprint.
That makes Ellesse the most successful New Zealand cyclist in Olympic history.
She was quite supreme on the final day, for the women’s sprint, bagging her semifinal with two straight rides over British star Emma Finucane in close finishes.
It brought her up against top qualifier and eight-time world champion Lea Friedrich of Germany.
Again the kiwi dominated to claim the sprint gold medal in two-straight rides.
“I couldn’t have hoped for anything more. It has been a great campaign. Today I was able top produce some really good performances and I was absolutely thrilled to won the gold medal
“This means so much to go with the gold medal in the keirin which has been a dream come true. And to win the medal with my teammates in the team sprint was special. I have had such fantastic support from the coaching and wider performance team and from Cycling New Zealand.
“We have a great team together in women’s sprinting and I think we will only get better from here.”
The other medal came from Wollaston in the four-discipline omnium. Ally was solid in the scratch race and tempo but went out slightly earlier than expected in the elimination leaving her with considerable work to do.
“My coach told me that the event was far from over. I figured I needed two laps over the field to get into the medals but the key was to be patient and bide my time.”
Ally waiting until the final 25 laps and then she struck by lapping the field once for 2- bonus points, and then working so part to gain another lap and still find the strength to finish second in the final double-point sprint.
It moved her up to the bronze medal spot which seemed out of reach for so long. Earlier Sam Dakin, who broke the national record in sprint qualifying, moved to his favoured keirin competition and worked his way through to the semifinals and ultimately to the ride-off for 7th to 12th placings. Sam had another strong ride to finish second and eighth overall to mark an outstanding campaign in his Olympic debut.
This is an outstanding return for the New Zealand cyclists and helped lift the country to its equal highest medal return and highest number of gold medals.
Roll on Los Angeles.