Dawkins wears golden grin

BY LOGAN SAVORY

Eddie Dawkins keeps ticking the boxes as the Invercargill lad continues to inch towards a shot at world glory in the sport of cycling.

The young Southlander last night added yet another notch to his impressive cycling belt when he vindicated his tag of favourite to win the gold medal in the 1000m time trial at the Oceania championships at the ILT Veledrome.

Dawkins was second-last to go out in the time trial and he clipped almost 1 second off the eventual second-placed Joel Leonard of Australia.

The Southlander racked up a time of 1min 3.53sec to claim the honours with relative ease.

The effort brought the relatively subdued Southland crowd to full voice, although Dawkins himself wasn't exactly over the moon after the race, even if he has a sparkling new gold medal.

The time was down on what he could produce.

"The ride didn't go all how I wanted to," he said. "I had a couple of a malfunctions, you could say, but parts of the ride were really good. The first two laps were faster than I've ever gone before."

Dawkins admitted he faded a little but was still pleased to be crowned the Oceania champion.

With the focus for New Zealand looming towards the team pursuit leading into the 2012 Olympics, his sights may start to sway away from his favoured kilo event, although he did confirm the thought of a shot at the Commonwealth Games in India next year in that 1km event was still at the front of his mind.

Earlier last night Southland's dynamic teenager Pieter Bulling turned in an impressive showing in the men's under-19 3000m individual pursuit to claim a bronze medal.

It is Bulling's first step into the under-19 grade and he has had his buildup to the Oceania champs hampered as he continues to come back from a niggling knee injury.

However, last night the Southland Boys' High School student produced a nice ride to win the race for third spot.

Soon after, Australian Jackson Law won the final over his countrymate Alexander Edmondson to claim the under-19 3000m individual pursuit final.

New Zealand claimed gold in the elite women's 10km scratch race when Canterbury's Joanne Kiesanowski snuck through in a hard-fought contest.

The final event last night was probably the most spectacular.

The 30km elite men's points races dished up plenty of drama when three riders went down in a crash early in the race.

The crash split up the field briefly when the three riders went down before normality resumed.

Some big guns on New Zealand track racing battled it out in a tight affair, with Sam Bewley winning, Marc Ryan second and Southland's Tom Scully picking up the broze.

logan.savory@stl.co.nz

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