Roulston creates NZ cycling history

PETER MEECHAM/Fairfax Media

WINNERS: The New Zealand men's quartet beat their Australian rivals in a rideoff for the bronze medal.

PETER MEECHAM/Fairfax Media

MEDAL MOMENT: New Zealand's team pursuiters, right, watch the flag raised at the medal presentation ceremony.

PETER MEECHAM/Fairfax Media

BRONZE IN THE BAG: New Zealand's team pursuiters celebrate their bronze medal rideoff victory over Australia.

Fairfax Media

CYCLING SUCCESS: Ashburton's Hayden Roulston rode into New Zealand cycling immortality at the Laoshan Velodrome when he became the the first Kiwi to win two track cycling medals at one Olympics.

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Ashburton's Hayden Roulston rode into New Zealand cycling immortality at the Laoshan Velodrome when he became the the first Kiwi to win two track cycling medals at one Olympics.

Roulston added a bronze with the team pursuit late Monday night to the individual silver he claimed as part of New Zealand's Super Saturday to become just the 18th Kiwi to grab two Olympic medals, and the eighth to win multiple medals at the same Games.

And an ecstatic Roulston vowed that he might not yet be done, with the madison still to come on Tuesday.

"It's not finished yet," grinned the 27-year-old who will ride with Greg Henderson in the madison. "It means something for sure.

"I didn't come to try and break records in that respect but to walk away with two medals so far I'm absolutely ecstatic, eh."

The team pursuiters proved there is life after Super Saturday at these Olympics when they rode a superb 3:57 to shade the Australian quartet by over a second in a race that was tight most of the way. Their bronze took the Kiwi medal tally at the Games to six.

The New Zealand quartet of Sam Bewley, Hayden Roulston, Marc Ryan and Jesse Sergent defeated a solid Australian lineup with a concentrated display of riding, and later rued the fact that they may well have gone one better.

In a thrilling contest that was neck and neck through the first 2000m, the Kiwis were able to step on the gas over the second half of the race.

They'd edged out to 0.6sec in front with 1000m to go and had the margin up around the 1sec mark with just a couple of laps remaining. They eventually crossed the line with nearly 1.3s up their sleeve (3:57.776 against 3:59.006) to give New Zealand it's third bronze medal of the Games.

Valerie Vili and the Evers-Swindell twins have won New Zealand's two golds, and rowers Mahe Drysdale and pair George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle were the other bronze medal winners.

After the crack Great Britain side claimed a comfortable gold medal against Denmark in a world record time of 3:53.314 (beating their own mark set a night earlier by nearly two seconds), Roulston was rueing the fact that it wasn't his team out in the showpiece contest of the night.

The New Zealanders were only third fasted from the qualifying rides, when they dominated the Spanish but weren't quite quick enough to make it into the top two.

"We were disappointed," said Roulston.

"Not in our performance, more the fact that the way the competition runs, with fastest teams against slowest, you're going to catch people and it's unfair. Some teams catch in the wrong place on the track and it slows you down.

"We were one of those unlucky teams last night. We rode 57s for the second and third kilometre and then 59 for the last 'K'.

"That's two seconds that we lost and we easily could have been in the final." But Roulston was full of praise for his team-mates whom he said showed they have a huge future on the track.

"Those guys are so young they don't even realise what they're doing right now. It's quite phenomenal to be riding 3:57 and one of the guys is 20."

Times may not have mattered last night but the New Zealand team rode faster on all three occasions than Australia, becoming the first Kiwi team to break the four-minute barrier.

They were left pondering what might have been having fallen agonisingly short in the first round heats and their chances of pushing for gold.

The extra effort it needed to over-take Spain in its first round heat took some sting out of their run home.

"The way the competition's run is they put the fastest team versus slowest and you're going to catch people," Roulston said. "It's so dangerous and unfair for some teams because if they catch at the wrong place of the track it slows them down. We were one of those unlucky teams."

The Kiwi team had been riding 57second laps before they were forced to pass their Spanish opponents which took nearly a full lap, and the next lap was clocked at 59seconds.

Those two seconds looked to cost them the chance for the ride for gold as they fell short by just .307 of a second.

Meanwhile Catherine Cheatley says she leaves the Olympics with no regrets despite failing to make her mark on her specialist points race at the Velodrome.

Wanganui's Cheatley was never able to get amongst it in the exciting points contest won conclusively by pre-race favourite Holland's Marianne Vos. The New Zealander finished 17th after failing to gain a point from the 10 scoring laps in the 100-lap, 25km race which is a mix of tactics, bravery and flat out sprinting speed.

But the 25-year-old New Zealander said after being off the bike for so long earlier this year while she recovered from surgery for circulation problems in her leg she had made a vow to herself that she felt she upheld here in Beijing.

"I just made a pact to myself I'd give everything 100 percent so when I came here I'd have no regrets.

And I don't have any," she said. "I went out and raced the best that I could and the result doesn't really reflect the race that I rode. That's the way points races work though."

Competing at her first Olympic Games, Cheatley just wasn't able to work her way into the reckoning on the scoring laps (riders compete for points every 10 circuits) and was never a contender. Vos added the Olympic gold to the world championship title she won in the points race earlier this year.

The key juncture came just prior to the seventh scoring lap when Vos managed to take a lap on the field and secured the bonus 20 points. From there she had the race in the bag providing no other rider could establish a clear breakaway.

Vos was too slick to allow that to happen. Cuba's Yoanka Gonzalez picked up the silver medal with 18 points while Spain's Leire Olaberria grabbed bronze on 13, shading another Cuban Maria Luisa Calle who finished on the same total.

Cheatley said her main tactic had been to "try to get in the right moves" but the race never unfolded her way.

"It didn't quite work but I went out there and gave it heaps," she said. She also had nothing but praise for the impressive Dutch rider who rode the perfect points race. "She's just unbelievable. When she wants to go she can just go.

"I didn't see her hardly at all the whole race ... then she just picks the time. I saw her go, and wanted to go, but I'd just been.

"I was biting my handlebars, but she's world class." Cheatley will now take a well-earned break ("I haven't seen my husband since March") before resuming racing with World Cup events at the end of the year.

And now? Cheering some fellow Kiwis in other sports and spending a lot less time in her room at the village were high on the agenda.