World cycling medallist taking nothing for granted

World champion silver medallist Shane Archbold is looking no further ahead than next week’s Oceania Track Cycling Championships in Invercargill.

The 21-year-old from Timaru is not yet daring to dream about next year’s London Olympics despite his breakthrough silver medal in this year’s world championships in the gruelling six-event omnium.

Victory in the Oceania Championships will not only earn New Zealand an automatic spot in next year’s pivotal world championships in Melbourne, it will give Archbold the inside running to be named for the upcoming World Cup in Colombia and for February’s worlds across the Tasman.

He knows the competition next week will be full-on, especially from his own teammates after Aaron Gate, Marc Ryan and Hayden Roulston took out the placings ahead of him in the last month’s New Zealand Omnium Championships.

“They are all great riders and all of them really rode strongly at the nationals,” Archbold.

“I think I have come on since that event. I had a pretty solid Tour of Southland and have been training well,” said the Timaru rider.

“Honestly I am not looking any further ahead than next week. I have decided to concentrate totally on the omnium. The others are also pushing for the team pursuit but it’s all or nothing for me in that respect. I’ve just got one shot which is the omnium.”

His strengths in the new Olympic event have been in the timed events (flying lap, kilo time trial and individual pursuit) and he knows that he has to work on his positioning in the bunch races (elimination, scratch and points races).

“I believe I can ride well in the scratch and points races but it’s a lot about awareness and putting yourself in the right positions.

“With the omnium you can’t have a bad event or you can’t really recover.”

After his outstanding exploits in the world championships in Copenhagen in March,

Archbold enjoyed a strong season with the BikeNZ under-23 squad in their road campaign in Europe which has laid the foundations for the all-important track programme for the summer.

Archbold is training with the BikeNZ squad at the ILT Velodrome this week ahead of the championships which begin on Monday with the omnium on Wednesday and Thursday.