Nick Kergozou will not ride at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. The Invercargill endurance cyclist has been taken to hospital after hurting his back in training, and the New Zealand team confirmed on Wednesday that he has been ruled out of a meeting he had spent four years working towards.
RNZ reported that the 30 year old is in a stable condition, that his family are with him in Glasgow, and that he is expected to make a full recovery. The injury happened at training rather than in competition, which makes it a particularly cruel way to lose a Games. Track cycling had not started when he was hurt. The programme at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome does not begin until Thursday.
New Zealand team chef de mission Nigel Avery said the squad felt for him.
“We know this is a hugely disappointing outcome for Nick after all his hard work in getting to the Games,” Avery said. “The New Zealand team is right behind him as he now focuses on recovery and we look forward to seeing him back in competition when he’s ready.”
Keegan Hornblow will take his place in the men’s pursuit. The Nelson rider is at his first Commonwealth Games, and he arrives with a solid record behind him rather than as an untested reserve. According to Cycling New Zealand, Hornblow came to the track after starting out on the road at the age of 12, made the New Zealand team for the 2019 junior world championships, then switched his focus back to the road through the Covid years with Bolton Equities Black Spoke, picking up a stage win at the New Zealand Cycle Classic along the way. He returned to the boards to become a core member of the elite men’s team pursuit squad, rode at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and took a world championship bronze medal in Chile in 2025.
For Kergozou, Glasgow would have been a third Commonwealth Games after Gold Coast in 2018 and Birmingham in 2022. Known around the velodrome as Kilo Kergy, he is one of the more versatile riders in the New Zealand programme. Cycling New Zealand lists him as a junior world championships team pursuit medallist who made his World Cup debut in 2015 and won team pursuit gold on home boards in Cambridge in 2018. He has taken team pursuit medals at world championships in 2017, 2023 and 2025. He is also a multiple national champion over the 1000 metre time trial, an event in which he has gone under the minute, and he has kept a road career running in parallel, riding for St George Continental Cycling Team since 2022 and winning stages at the Tour of Thailand and the Tour of Southland last year.
That range is why his absence matters beyond one start sheet. Endurance riders who can hold a pursuit schedule and also turn out in the bunch races are the ones a small team leans on across a four day programme, and New Zealand brought a cycling contingent of 19 riders to Glasgow. Ellesse Andrews leads the sprint group, alongside Olivia King, Rebecca Petch and Sam Dakin. The endurance group named in June included Marshall Erwood, George Jackson, Daniel Morton, Tom Sexton, Bryony Botha, Samantha Donnelly, Prudence Fowler, Emily Shearman and Ally Wollaston, with para-cyclists Devon Briggs, Nicole Murray and Emma Foy, and pilot Jessie Hodges, training and competing alongside them.
Cycling New Zealand high performance manager Ryan Hollows said when the team was announced that the Games remained a key step towards Los Angeles in 2028. “We have a strong team of proven performers and emerging talent focussed on strong execution,” Hollows said. He also pointed to the shared build up between the track and para-cycling groups. “Our track teams train alongside our Para-cyclists and it will be a special experience to compete with them in Glasgow,” he said.
New Zealand Olympic Committee chief executive Nicki Nicol put the sport in a longer frame. “We have a proud history of success in cycling at the Commonwealth Games with an astounding 93 medals since the London 1934 British Empire Games,” Nicol said.
The velodrome should be familiar ground. Glasgow last hosted the Games in 2014, when New Zealand cyclists came away with 11 medals from the same track. This time the four day programme carries 26 medal events across track cycling and para track cycling, with sprints, keirins, pursuits, scratch races and points races, and the elimination race making its Commonwealth Games debut for both men and women.
The cyclists start with the rest of the team already well underway. Lewis Clareburt won New Zealand’s first gold of these Games in the pool, Zoe Hobbs became the first New Zealand woman to win the Commonwealth 100 metres title, and weightlifter Cameron McTaggart took silver in the 88 kilogram class. Hornblow now inherits a start he did not expect, and Kergozou watches from a hospital bed in the host city.
Games teams talk a lot about depth, and this is what depth actually looks like when it is needed. A rider goes down in training days out from the first race, and someone with an Olympic Games and a world championship medal behind him steps across to fill the gap. It is small comfort for the man who missed out. Four years of work can end with a training session and an ambulance, and there is no way to make that sound reasonable.
What do you make of the New Zealand cycling team’s chances in Glasgow, and have you had an injury steal something you had worked years for? Leave a comment 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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