Southlander grabs World Cup cycling golds

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GOOD AS GOLD: Southland's Tom Scully shows off the gold medal he won in the scratch race at the World Cup in Melbourne on Friday.

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Take a bow Tom Scully. You've just ridden on to the world stage for everyone to see.

The 19-year-old Southlander stunned the New Zealand cycling fraternity at the weekend when he won not one but two gold medals at the track cycling World Cup meet in Melbourne.

Scully had expected to use the points and scratch races as experience in the lead-up to his big event, the madison.

However, the scratch race ended up more than just a ride for experience for Scully.

What followed was something very special for the dedicated Southland cyclist.

Ten riders put a lap on the field, with Scully making the decisive break a lap from the finish.

He cruised to win by five lengths to beat some well-performed and experienced riders, including world champion Chris Newton.

But stay with us here; Scully's fairytale trip to Melbourne doesn't end with his remarkable scratch race win.

For good measure he claimed another gold medal when he teamed up with Marc Ryan to win the 40km madison event.

The pair notched up 16 points, with Germany second on eight and Ukraine third with three.

As expected, BikeNZ high-performance director Mark Elliot lumped plenty of praise on the young Southlander for his deeds and suggested he had made a loud, clear statement that he is one for the future. "We brought Tom here primarily for experience," Elliot said. "He has totally exceeded our expectations, for sure. It is a quite exceptional young prospect. He has come here as an unknown but he's bound to be a marked man from here in."

Scully's impressive showing played the major hand in getting New Zealand's tally to four gold medals, a silver and a bronze in the World Cup.

New Zealand also qualified a good number of disciplines for next year's world championships, which Scully now must be eyeing with an extremely fond look.

Cycling Southland president Steve Canny yesterday suggested Scully's effort in Melbourne was up there with Southland's greatest cycling accomplishments, if not Southland's best overall sporting accomplishments.

Canny believed Scully's progression, to the point he is heading off the best in the world, was another tick in the box for Invercargill's indoor cycling track, the only indoor track in New Zealand. He felt having the ILT Velodrome available had played a major role in the nation's recent impressive showings in track cycling.

"We always did think it would happen and now it is," Canny said.

"It's not just the local riders like Tom that have benefited.

"It is all the New Zealand riders."

Meanwhile, Scully's Southland team-mate Eddie Dawkins was beaten in the final of the B sprint but finished in the top 10 after his outstanding 10.361 effort in qualifying on the dead Melbourne track.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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