Godfrey plays waiting game
Members of the New Zealand team arrived in Christchurch yesterday with local hero Godfrey awash with colours in his Rainbow jersey and gold medal draped around his neck — the spoils for winning the omnium track event at the world championships in Manchester this week.
Its only just sort of starting to sink in, especially on the trip home, sitting on the plane its still kind of surreal, Godfrey said of his title-winning performance.
Its something that we all dream of and when it happens it makes all those years of hard work worthwhile.
He is hoping his efforts in Manchester will be enough to put him in the frame for the Olympic Games, despite the omnium not yet at Olympic event.
Hopefully (the selectors) will see this result, the crossover it has and Ill get the chance to make that travelling team and have a go at riding my way back into that team pursuit, Godfrey said. But its a fantastic group of young guys coming through and theyre obviously doing a good job.
New Zealand finished fourth in the team pursuit with Hayden Roulston, Marc Ryan, Sam Bewley and Westley Gough on the boards — slashing five seconds off the national record in clocking 4min 00.833sec to be third fastest in qualifying and 4:01.993 to miss bronze to Australia. Godfreys versatility however may be a telling factor when the New Zealand team for Beijing is announced later this month.
The omnium itself, all the events are very similar to the madison and the team pursuit, they crossover pretty well, he said. My times for the worlds were quite good and should reflect well, looking at the decisions.
Godfreys world championship title may also be a timely confidence boost ahead of the Olympics.
It puts it out there and shows that its not impossible — its certainly attainable, youve just got to keep chipping away at it and eventually things will go your way.
With the New Zealand team nabbing two fourth placings in the pursuiting events and a fifth in the points race, there is a belief that the Kiwis are close to the Olympic dais.
National track coach Tim Carswell said they would be using a camp in Invercargill this month to look at every aspect of performance, including equipment, to give the riders the edge in Beijing.
We will try and look at all the little options that we havent managed to explore as yet, he said.
Were certainly hoping to go up another notch again for the Olympics.
After the training camp in Invercargill, the selected team for the Olympics will face a block of road training. They head to Bordeaux, in France, to continue their build-up and will leave their entry into Beijing as late as possible with the track campaign starting on August 15.
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Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm under