The men’s Kiwi team pursuit won New Zealand’s first gold at the Games, beating England by two seconds in the 4000m final, and they were followed by the women’s team sprint on the top step of the podium .
The women’s team pursuit had started in silver and the men’s team sprint finished in bronze as all three colors were claimed in a busy stint at the London velodrome.
The men’s quartet of Aaron Gate, Jordan Kerby, Tom Sexton and Campbell Stewart were the first to take gold – entering the event as minor favorites and qualifying first for the finals, before expressing their authority when it mattered most in a Commonwealth Games record time of 3:47:57.
They came out of the blocks more slowly in the final, but moved forward after 800m and slowly increased their lead until it was too much for the hosts to roll back.
Gate told Sky Sport he knew there was gold in the bag when the home crowd began to fall silent.
“With a few laps to go I thought ‘oh they don’t make that much noise there, hopefully that’s a good thing for us’. When we finally saw it, it was a huge sigh of relief.”
That relief will be partly due to their Olympic heartbreak in Tokyo, when Gate’s crash reduced their chances in the bronze medal race, but Stewart, who was part of that Olympic squad, says it all came together perfectly this time.
“We set it up there in qualifying, we had a few things to work on. We knew we had to go faster and all these guys put in 100 per cent – it all came together perfectly.”
Their gold medal followed the Kiwi women’s team pursuit, which started a morning of medals with silver, outnumbered and outnumbered by Australia in the final for gold.
It was an extremely impressive attempt to make the final as they lost Ally Wollaston to injury before the event. Her replacement Ellesse Andrews was literally there to make up for the numbers to ensure the Kiwi quartet could compete, lining up for the start before waving off immediately to stay fresh for the team sprint final that followed an hour later.
That left Bryony Botha, Michaela Drummond and Emily Shearman riding as a trio against the four-tier Australians, and it was never close, with the Australians taking a Commonwealth Games record win by 5.32 seconds.
Botha were delighted to have even made it to the final, given their numerical disadvantage.
“It’s so amazing – we started today not knowing what to do, we only had three drivers, we had no idea we would be on the second step of the podium at the end of the day, so we’re extremely proud and so happy with what we’ve done.”
Drummond told Sky Sport that their performance bodes well for the future.
“It makes a big difference, 4k is a really long way with just three riders. It really gives us confidence – if we can do this kind of time as three, imagine what we can do with Ally back in the squad, so We’re really looking forward to what’s to come.”
The decision to keep Andrews on the sprint team paid off as Andrews, Rebecca Petch and Olivia King took gold, beating Canada by 0.576 seconds in the final.
The trio set a Games record of 47.841 seconds to qualify first for the final and then went better in the gold medal decider, with a time of 47.425 earning New Zealand their second gold of the Games.
They took four medals just minutes later, with the men’s sprint team beating Canada by 0.717 seconds to claim bronze.
After a false start in which a Canadian rider had a mechanical problem, Bradly Knipe, Sam Dakin and Sam Webster led all the way to four medals from four attempts for the Kiwis on the track.