New Zealand names Worlds selection for Stuttgart

Bike New Zealand has announced the names of the riders who will participate in the upcoming World Championships in Stuttgart, from September 25-30. Some of the major players in New Zealand cycling will not be able to compete, mostly due to injury.

Julian Dean (Crédit Agricole), Gregory Henderson (T-Mobile) and Timothy Gudsell (Française Des Jeux) will not be able to make the trip to Germany. Dean, the current champion of his country, is still suffering from the aftermath of a knee surgery, while Henderson and Gudsell are recovering from crashes. Henderson went down in race in Germany while Gudsell hit Italian pavement in the Giro.

Due to those injuries, the cycling careers of Commonwealth Games medalists Hayden Roulston and Rosara Joseph have come full circle when they were named in the New Zealand team for this month's UCI World Road Championships in Germany.

Roulston was named one year after he "retired" from the sport on medical grounds with a potential heart complaint. Now with the medical issue under control, the Ashburton rider has been included in the three-strong elite men's team to contest the road race. Roulston will be joined by European-based professionals Glen Chadwick and Jeremy Vennell. Chadwick, formerly from Opunake but now based in Australia, has been in strong form for his Navigators team with several stage wins this year while Vennell impressed in the recent Tour of Ireland for his DFL-Cyclingnews-Litespeed team. Chadwick, the national time trial champion, will also compete in that event in Stuttgart with former national champion Gordon McCauley.

Joseph, who won a Commonwealth Games silver medal in mountain biking in Melbourne, will make her world championship debut in road cycling in Germany. Josep will head the five-strong women's team together with in-form Jo Kiesanowski and Joseph, who comes in on the back of a brilliant fifth placing in the mountain bike world championships last week. The remainder of the women's team – Toni Bradshaw, Michelle Hyland and Carissa Wilkes – has been training at Bike NZ's European Training Centre in Limoux, France under national road cycling coach Jacques Landry. There is space for one more rider, should Bike New Zealand chose to fill up all the assigned spaces.

The Under 23 team will participate in the road race with Clinton Avery, Sam Bewley, Alex Meenhorst and Michael Torckler.

The selection was based with the courses of the next two major international events in mind. "The Stuttgart course is very tough with a substantial amount of climbing on each lap," said Bike NZ High Performance Director Mark Elliott. "It is going to be a strong indicator of who on the world stage will step up in Beijing next year where the course is equally challenging, in addition to the heat factor."