Cycling Southland's Matt Archibald has recorded the fastest time ever recorded by a New Zealander in a Flying 200 setting 9.737 in qualifying at the UCI World Cup in Mexico this morning.
Sam Webster (Auckland) finished fifth overall in the men’s sprint and Archibald eighth, after both riders set stunning times in qualifying.
Archibald qualified fifth in 9.737s, the fastest time that any New Zealand rider has achieved, assisted by the lightning fast track and high altitude. This beat the previous best of 9.963 by Eddie Dawkins at the world championships last year and means that the fastest two men in New Zealand's track cycling history are Southlanders.
Webster was seventh fastest also with a superb 9.772, with the fastest time of 9.633 by Juan Peralta Gascon from Spain which was 0.6s outside the world record. Incredibly, 27 riders broke the 10 second barrier in qualifying.
Both New Zealanders went through in the first round but Webster lost to Max Niederlag (GER) and Archibald to Denis Dmitriev (RUS) in the quarterfinals, with both taking their opponents to to the deciding third ride.
Webster then prevailed in the ride-off for fifth to eighth to complete an outstanding World Cup for BikeNZ sprinters after winning the Team Sprint and achieving strong results in both the keirin and sprints.
They have accumulated valuable points to hopefully cement qualifying spots for the world championships.
The riders return to prepare for the upcoming national track championships in Invercargill.