Olympic champion Ellesse Andrews will spearhead a 19-strong New Zealand track cycling team at next month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with the squad named this week ahead of racing that begins on 23 July at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.
Andrews, from Christchurch, arrives in Scotland as one of the most decorated athletes in the entire New Zealand contingent. At the Paris 2024 Olympics she became the first New Zealand rider to win Olympic gold in both the individual sprint and the keirin at a single Games, and she added a team sprint silver alongside Shaane Fulton and Rebecca Petch. She was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours for her services to cycling.
Glasgow will be her third Commonwealth Games, and she returns with a heavy load to defend. Andrews swept three titles at Birmingham four years ago, taking the sprint, the team sprint and the keirin, and she will be the rider every other nation tries to knock off the top step this time around.
She heads a sprint group that also features Olivia King of Hamilton, who travelled to Paris as a reserve, along with Petch from Te Awamutu, who has returned to the track after having a child, and Auckland’s Sam Dakin, who has confirmed he will retire once the Games are over. It is a mix of a generational star, a returning mother and a veteran taking one last shot, which gives the sprint line-up plenty of stories to follow.
The endurance squad is just as strong on paper. Ally Wollaston of Auckland, the reigning national road champion and a Paris 2024 Olympic medallist, leads a women’s group that also includes fellow Paris medallists Bryony Botha and Emily Shearman of Palmerston North, plus Samantha Donnelly of Christchurch and Prudence Fowler of Auckland. That depth in the women’s team pursuit and points races gives New Zealand a genuine chance at multiple podium finishes.
On the men’s side the endurance riders blend experience and youth. Established Olympians Keegan Hornblow, Nick Kergozou, George Jackson and Tom Sexton carry the load, while Marshall Erwood and Daniel Morton step up as newcomers chasing their first taste of a major Games. Three of the men, Kergozou, Sexton and Erwood, are from Invercargill, keeping the southern city’s long association with track racing alive.
The most significant change in Glasgow has nothing to do with results. For the first time, New Zealand will field a combined track cycling team that brings para-cyclists in alongside the rest of the squad rather than treating them as a separate group. Devon Briggs of Cambridge, Nicole Murray of Hamilton and Emma Foy of Dargaville, racing on the tandem with her pilot Jessie Hodges of Hamilton, complete the 19-rider team and mark that milestone.
Cycling New Zealand High Performance Manager Ryan Hollows said the make-up of the squad reflected both pedigree and promise. “We have a strong team of proven performers and emerging talent focussed on strong execution,” he said in announcing the team.
The history behind the jersey is hard to ignore. New Zealand cyclists have won 93 medals across road and track since the first British Empire Games in 1934, and cycling has long been one of the country’s most reliable sources of Commonwealth medals. The last time the Games were held in Glasgow, in 2014, New Zealand riders came home with 11 medals, a haul this group will be measured against.
The return to Glasgow carries extra weight given the turbulence around the Commonwealth Games movement in recent years. After Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 edition, the Scottish city stepped in with a slimmed-down programme, and track cycling remains one of the core sports on a reduced schedule. For New Zealand’s riders, that streamlined format means the velodrome will be one of the busiest medal markets on offer, and the country is sending a team built to take advantage of it.
The squad will base itself in the United Kingdom for a training block before competition starts, allowing the riders to adjust to the time zone and the boards at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, the venue that hosted New Zealand’s strong 2014 showing. With Andrews leading the sprinters, a deep women’s endurance line-up and the first fully integrated para-cycling group, the expectation is that cycling will once again be near the front of New Zealand’s medal count when the Games wrap up. You can read more on the selection at RNZ and Stuff.
Are you backing Ellesse Andrews to defend her three Birmingham titles, and which of the endurance riders do you think will deliver in Glasgow? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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