Waimate cyclist Dylan Kennett has added treble Oceania titles to his national and junior world championship successes.
The first three days of competition of the Oceania Track Cycling Championships in Invercargill saw Kennett blitz the under-19 men's field, with gold in both the 3000m individual pursuit and the individual 1000m time trial, plus the team pursuit.
But it didn't stop there for the 16-year-old, with Kennett blowing away New Zealand records in both the individual pursuit and kilo events.
Having trailed Australian Tirian McManus by one second in the first 1000m of the pursuit, Kennett put the hammer down in the last 2km to finish in 3m 20.435s, smashing Michael Vink's 2009 record of 3m 20.9s.
Kennett felt he had gone out too fast too early in the pursuit qualifier that morning, so the plan was to stick with McManus over the first kilometre before going hard.
"I went way too hard in the morning over the first kilometre, and I felt quite tired near the end. I already knew what I needed to change, but my coaches also said for me to go a bit easier and then kill it over the rest of the race,'' Kennett said.
McManus was again the main threat in Tuesday evening's time trial, but with a 5m lead after three laps, Kennett blasted home untroubled in 1m 3.644s to see off the Australian by almost two seconds.
His time also eclipsed Eddie Dawkins' time of 1m 3.700s to bag his second national record in as many days.
Tuesday evening also saw Kennett secure silver in the 20km points race, after helping fellow Kiwi Hayden McCormick to gold.
McCormick finished the points race with 28 points, with Kennett nearby on 23.
Kennett said he knew the race was sewn up for the Kiwis when McCormick lapped the field 15 laps in.
"The Aussies, Tirian McManus and Caleb Ewan, were keeping an eye on me because they thought I would be their main threat, so I was able to hold them back a lot to help Hayden.
"Hayden made a break early on and managed to lap everyone.
"I had already won a sprint at that stage, so I was pretty confident we would be able to hold the Aussies off after that,'' Kennett said.
The New Zealand under-19 team pursuiters, consisting of Kennett, McCormick, Tom Beadle and Kristoff Ford, qualified as the top seeds for the 4000m final, six seconds ahead of the second-placed Australians in a time of 4m 17.770s.
They went on to take the gold medal last night with a time of 4m 11s.
- Oamaru Mail
