Sam Webster

EVENT: Cycling – Men’s Track: Team Sprint, Indiv Sprint, 1000m Time Trial, Keirin

Cyclist Sam Webster had a celebrated career on the track, winning an Olympic silver medal, six world championship medals, three of them gold, and eight Commonwealth Games medals, four of them gold.

Webster, born in Auckland in 1991, appealed as a champion in the making even in his early teens.

In 2009, he was sensational, winning gold medals at the world junior track champs in Moscow in both the individual and team sprint and in the keirin. He won the Emerging Talent section at the Halberg Awards that year.

The following year, he stepped up to the senior ranks and, aged just 18, was sent to the Delhi Commonwealth Games, where he was far from overawed.

He, Eddie Dawkins and Ethan Mitchell won a silver medal in the team sprint and Webster picked up the bronze in the individual sprint event. The crack Australian team beat them in the team race in a Commonwealth Games record time, but the New Zealanders’ 44.239s was also a great piece of riding. In the individual sprint, Webster was fourth after the preliminaries, then beat Canadian Travis Smith to advance to the semi-finals. He was outgunned there by Australian Shane Perkins, but beat fellow New Zealander Dawkins in the bronze medal race.

Webster’s next Commonwealth Games was at Glasgow in 2014. He went even better than in Delhi, winning gold medals in the individual and team sprint and a silver in the keirin. After winning his heat and semi-final in the keirin, he finished second behind Australian Matthew Glaetzer in the six-man final. In the individual sprint, he was third in the qualifying section, then won the first round, the quarter-final and the semi-final (beating Dawkins). Riding for gold, Webster edged out Englishman Jason Kenny 2-1, outmanoeuvring Kenny in the deciding third race. The New Zealand sprint team of Webster, Mitchell and Dawkins was an established force by 2014 and they won the gold medal in style, setting a Commonwealth Games record in the final.

In Webster’s debut Olympic appearance, at Rio de Janeiro in 2016, he was seventh in the keirin, 12th in the individual sprint and then helped the sprint team earn a silver medal. The New Zealand team were second to Britain in the qualifying round, beat them in the heat and were then edged out by 0.1s in the final. The British team set an Olympic record in holding out the New Zealanders.

At the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Webster repeated his Glasgow heroics, again winning the gold medal in both the individual and team sprint. He was fifth in the final, after looking in terrific form in earlier rounds. He initially looked below his best in the individual sprint, qualifying in 12th of the 16 available spots. But he never lost a race in the best of three quarter-finals, semi-finals or final, and dealt summarily with Scottish ace Jack Carlin in the gold medal race. The New Zealand sprint team – again Webster, Mitchell and Dawkins – was imperious, setting a Commonwealth Games record in the qualifying round and beating England in the final by the best part of a second.

For the first times at a Games, there were no medals for Webster at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He was off the pace in the keirin, and in the team sprint, Webster, Mitchell and either Sam Dakin or Callum Saunders, who alternated in the third spot, could finish only seventh. Webster found it tough going in the individual sprint, recording 18th place in qualifying, then advancing only as far as the quarter-finals.

At Birmingham in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Webster could not make much impression in the keirin, where he was seventh, or the individual sprint, where he snatched the 16th and final qualifying spot, and was then eliminated in the first round. However, in the team sprint, New Zealand, with Webster now joined by Dakin and Bradly Knipe, qualified third and beat Canada comfortably in the race for bronze.

For a decade from 2010, Webster represented New Zealand with distinction at world championships. The sprint team of Webster, Mitchell and Dawkins was particularly potent.

They hinted at what was to come by finishing sixth (subsequently promoted to fifth after a drugs disqualification) at Apeldoorn, the Netherlands in 2011, just missing a berth in the semis. They won bronze in Melbourne in 2012, silver in Minsk, Belarus, in 2013, gold in Cali, Colombia, in 2014, silver in Yvelines, France, in 2015, and gold at London in 2016 and Hong Kong in 2017. They were sixth at Apeldoorn in 2018. At Pruszków, Poland in 2019, they were third in qualifying but then slipped to eighth overall.

In their last world championship effort, in Berlin in 2020, the New Zealanders closed out a wonderful decade of achievement for one of New Zealand’s great, if slightly under-rated, teams with a seventh placing.

Webster competed in several individual events at world championships. His best finishes were fourth in the sprint in 2013, and sixth in the keirin in 2010 and 2015.

Dawkins, Mitchell and Webster were twice finalists in the Team section at the Halberg Awards. Webster had been a finalist in two categories – Sportsman and Team - in 2014 for his gold medal performances at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Webster retired from cycling at the end of 2022 and joined executive recruitment company Kerridge & Partners.