Golden hour: Track cyclists make spectacular start to Commonwealth Games

Aaron Gate knew New Zealand was on track for their first gold medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games when he heard the home crowd at London’s Lee Valley VeloPark silent.

New Zealand track cyclists won four medals in a short time, two gold, one silver and one bronze during a special opening night at the velodrome.

The men’s team pursuit won its first gold, holding host nation England two seconds behind to claim the nation’s first gold medal in the event since Gary Anderson, Nigel Donnelly, Glenn McCleay and Staurt Williams won domestically in 1990.

The quartet of Gate, Jordan Kerby, Tom Sexton and Campbell Stewart recovered from the disappointment of last year’s Olympics in Tokyo, where they crashed out of the bronze medal race while leading Australia, to win the final in a new record time of the Commonwealth Games of 3:47.575.

“When the crowd started to get a little quieter [we knew we had won],” a delighted Gate told Sky Sport.

“With a few laps to go it was like they weren’t making a lot of noise anymore, hopefully it’s a good thing for us.

“When we finally crossed the line I looked up and saw her still coming out of the back straight. It was a huge sigh of relief.”

The lead changed hands several times during a pulse-pounding start to the men’s 4000m team pursuit final, but the New Zealanders came out on top of the two teams and never looked back after opening a 1-second lead after a huge turn in front of Sexton.

Sexton dropped out, leaving Gate, Kerby and Stewart to finish the job for the fastest qualifiers, who came to Birmingham determined to make up for the Olympics.

“It was an incredible night,” Stewart said. “We sorted it out in qualifying. We had to work on a few things. We went out tonight and we knew we had to go faster.

“Each of these guys put in 100% and the team behind us was all there for us and it all came together perfectly as we saw there.”

The recently formed women’s sprint combination of Rebecca Petch, Olivia King and Ellesse Andrews followed suit, beating Canada in their final Commonwealth Games record time of 47,425.

Representing New Zealand in BMX at the Tokyo Olympics, Petch jumped on a track bike for the first time just eight months ago.

But she got the New Zealand trio off to a perfect start, opening a 0.3 second lead after the first lap. Canada closed the gap during King’s leg before Andrews, a silver medalist in the keirin at last year’s Olympics, drove home to secure the gold medal.

Andrews had previously ridden to the women’s pursuit team to ensure they could compete before winning a silver medal.

Andrews volunteered her services with the endurance team when Ally Wollaston was ruled out with an injury on the eve of the Games. Wollaston crashed during the inaugural Tour de France Femmes and broke her wrist a day before she was due to leave for England.

New Zealand was well beaten by Australia in the gold medal race, but they had a brave ride as they basically only had three riders.

With the women’s sprint final taking place an hour after the team pursuit, Andrews dropped out as soon as the starting gun went off, leaving Bryony Botha, Michaela Drummond and Emily Shearman up against four Australian riders.

New Zealand trailed at every checkpoint, finishing five seconds off the pace, with Australia finishing strong on the final lap and setting a new Commonwealth Games record of 4:12.234. Botha was part of the New Zealand team that also won a silver medal at the Gold Coast in 2018.

“We started today not knowing what to do. We only had three riders. We had no idea that at the end of the day we would be on the second step of the podium,” Botha told Sky Sport.

“We are extremely proud and we are so happy with what we did today.”

The New Zealand men’s sprint team of Bradley Knipe, Sam Dakin and Sam Webster added a fourth medal by beating Canada in the bronze medal race in a time of 43,856.

They missed a chance for gold after only qualifying third.