The youthful cycling combination of Tom Scully and Shane Archbold upset their more fancied rivals to win the national Madison title in Invercargill last night.
Scully, from Invercargill, and Timaru's Archbold combined to take out the 40km event, a two-man race where one rider must be in-play at all times, handing over to the teammate with a hand-to-hand slingshot action.
The pair took full advantage of the expert tuition they have received at a national training camp this week run by former world and Olympic Madison champion Brett Aitken from Australia.
They beat off Beijing Olympics team pursuit medallists Marc Ryan of Timaru and Wesley Gough of Waipukurau who were second.
National individual pursuit champion Jesse Sergent of Feilding and Rotorua's Sam Bewley were third.
Scully and Archbold won three of the first four sprints and then positioned themselves well to counter the attacks from Ryan and Gough especially over the last 30 laps.
Ryan and Gough attacked to put a lap on the field, winning the last two sprints but the young combination managed to remain in touch with their more experienced opponents to win with 27 points.
Along with the national title, Scully and Archbold have been selected to compete in in a week-long under-23 carnival in the Netherlands in two weeks.
They then go to Manchester to compete in the opening round of the World Cup.
In other racing last night, Christchurch rider Jo Kiesanowski was the standout dominating both the sprints and scratch races.
Results
New Zealand Madison championships, 40km: Tom Scully (Invercargill)/Shane Archbold (Timaru) 27 points 1, Wesley Gough (Waipukurau)/Marc Ryan (Timaru) 27 2, Sam Bewley (Rotorua)/Jesse Sergent (Feilding) 14 3, Shem Rodger (Cambridge)/Jason Christie (Ashburton) 14 4.
NZPA