Cycling Southland’s Phillipa Gray, Laura Thompson and Kylie Young were today named in the New Zealand Paralympic Games squad to line up in London in September.
After winning a bronze medal at this year’s UCI World Track Championships in Los Angeles, Gray and pilot Thompson will contest all four cycling events on their tandem cycle, the kilo time trial and their favoured individual pursuit on the track, as well as the road time trial and road race around the streets of London. Young is to pilot former World Track Champion Jayne Parsons, subject to competing at the UCI 2012 Para-cycling Road World Cup in Spain, June.
Paralympics New Zealand Programme Director for Cycling, Brendon Cameron says "the programme and everybody involved has worked hard over the past three years to get to this point and I think all the athletes, those who were selected and also those who narrowly missed have transformed themselves into World class athletes. The internal fight for the spots within the team was also world class with every athlete selected being ranked within the top 5 in the World within their classification."
The Paralympic Games open on 29 August and end on 9 September 2012.
Meanwhile the good news continued yesterday with a further two Under 19 Men being named in the New Zealand road squad to contest events in Australia. Invercargill’s Josh Haggerty and Alexandra’s Tom Vessey will compete in the Australian U19 road champs and DBR Junior Canberra Tour in late June and early July.