Steele’s chance for kilo ride

Press, 11 October 1985, Page 18

Steele’s chance for kilo ride

A leading Canterbury and New Zealand track cyclist, Murray Steele, has a gilt edged opportunity to prove himself the best man for the kilometre time trial at next year’s Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Despite winning the national kilo title for the last three years, Steele was a wheel length behind the 1982 Commonwealth Games kilo gold medallist, Craig Adair, when the selectors named their squad to train for the Games in Edinburgh. Adair was regarded as the certainty for the kilo time trial, with the remaining two places left open for contenders, among them Steele. Adair, aged 22, recently

decided to opt out of the 1986 Games because of his business commitments, leaving the way open for Steele to take the number one spot. Although individual selections for events will not be made until the end of March, Steele is leaving nothing to chance in his preparation for the kilo and the 1000 m sprint. Weight training and road work, amounting to about 500 km a week, are part of the intense training programme he and the rest of the training squad began three weeks ago at a training camp in Auckland. As well as those traditional training methods, a sports medicine session has

been introduced, with each cyclist being tested for various muscle strengths on exercycles, the workload being increased at intervals.

The build-up is similar to that adopted before the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games.

Steele is happy with his preparation and sees no problem in tackling both events. His concern at present is whether the selectors will pick him for the kilo. “I’ve won the national title for the last three years in a row so hopefully that will have some bearing on it,” he said. Steele, Adair and Alan Miller, of Auckland, had been seen as a possible three for the kilo, but

Adair’s withdrawal and the fact that Miller has only recently resumed training after a car accident has thrown the selections open to surprises. Steele says three cyclists from outside the present squad are in with a chance. He feels that the New Zealand junior kilo champion, Wayne Eyre, and Jon Andrew, both from Canterbury, and Levin’s Barry Pryor could surprise.