Welcome to Sarah Ulmer's Page

She's the girl who won two junior world titles and who won gold in the Individual Pursuit at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. The country was right behind her back then, and again when she fought bravely against an injury to just miss bronze in the Pursuit at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games by a fraction of a second. Ulmer is the face of cycling in New Zealand. She is a former New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year winner, with her popularity extending to appearances in television advertisements.

And if breeding counts for anything in cycling, then she's got that too. Her grandfather Ron Ulmer represented New Zealand as a track cyclist at the 1938 Empire Games and father Gary won national titles on both the track and road during the 1950s and 60s. Right now she's preparing for the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

Sarah Ulmer (born March 14, 1976 in Auckland) is a New Zealand cyclist who won a Gold medal and set new world records at the 2004 Summer Olympics at Athens, the first New Zealander to win an Olympic cycling gold medal.

When she left Athens at the end of the games, Ulmer held the Olympic title, the Olympic and world records, the Commonwealth Games title and the Commonwealth Games record for the 3000m individual pursuit.

Ulmer showed exceptional potential in the pursuit as a youngster and rose to prominence when placing second at the 1994 Commonwealth Games at Victoria. Although continually improving her times, she was still maturing as a cyclist when she finished seventh at the Atlanta Olympics with a time of 3 min 43.176 s.

Two years later she won the gold medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur with a time of 3min 41.667. She looked a fine medal prospect for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but although she improved her time to 3 min 38.93 s, she didn't quite realise her potential and took fourth place.

Two more years on, Ulmer showed she was a big improver when she took six seconds off her Sydney time to win the gold medal at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth games, in the record time of 3min 32.467s.

On March 27, 2004 she set a new world record of 3 min 30.604 s when qualifying for the women's 3000 metres individual pursuit at the World Track Cycling Championships in Melbourne [1].

Still improving, Ulmer had the expectations of her country heaped on her when she went to Athens for the 2004 Olympics. She duly broke the world record in qualifying with a time of 3 min 26.4 s. She astounded the spectators when in dominating the final on August 22 she slashed almost two full seconds off that time when recording 3 min 24.537 s to win the gold medal and set a new world record time. It was subsequently revealed that while training in Europe for the Athens event, Ulmer had broken the world record more than once, but this was deliberately not made public to reduce the pressure on her from the media.

Ulmer reduced the world record by more than six seconds on the Athens track, and two other competitors, Katie MacTier from Australia and Leontien Ziljaard-van Moorsel from the Netherlands, also competed in under 3 min 30 s world record times.

Sarah Ulmer trains at the velodrome in the small rural town of Te Awamutu and is a prominent figure in both Te Awamutu and her resident, house town of Cambridge.


Major results

2002

1st Individual Pursuit National Track Championships
1st Points Race National Track Championships
1st National Criterium Championships
3rd stage, Tirreno Adriatico
5th overall, Circuit Cycliste de la Sarthe

2001

1st Individual Pursuit, Mexico City World Cup
1st Stage 8, Tour de Snowy
1st Stage 3 & 5, Tour of Williamette, OR
1st Stage 8 and 2nd Mountains Classification, Tour de l'Aude (2.9.1)
1st National Criterium Championships


2000

4th Individual Pursuit, Oympic Games, Sydney
2nd Individual Pursuit, Turin Track World Cup
1st Individual Pursuit, Cali World Cup
1st, Athens Twilight Criterium, GA
1st Stage 1, GP Féminine International du Québec (2.9.2)
1st Stage 2 & 4, 1st Mountains Classification and 3rd GC, Fitchburg-Longsjo Cycling Classic
1st Sprints Classification and 3rd GC, HP Women's Challenge
2nd Stage 2, Tour de Snowy
1st Stage 1, 2, 4 & 6 and 3rd GC, Tour de 'Toona


1999

2nd Individual Pursuit, Texas World Cup
8th Points Race, Texas World Cup
7th Points Race, Mexico World Cup
6th Individual Pursuit, World Track Championships
1st Stage 9 and 12th GC, Hewlett Packard Women's Challenge
1st Stage 1 & 4, Tour de 'Toona


1998

1st Individual Pursuit, Commonwealth Games, Kuala Lumpur
2nd Points Race, Commonwealth Games, Kuala Lumpur
2nd Individual Pursuit, National Track Championships
1st Points Race, National Track Champ
ionships
5th Individual Pursuit, Cali World Cup 4th Points Race, Cali World Cup


1997

17th GC, Hewlett Packard Women's Challenge


1996

1st Individual Pursuit, National Track Championships
2nd Points Race, National Track Championships
7th Individual Pursuit, Olympic Games, Atlanta


1995

1st Individual Pursuit, National Track Championships
2nd Points Race, National Track Championships
3rd Sprint, National Track Championships
1st Individual Pursuit, Adelaide World Cup
3rd Points Race, Adelaide World Cup
1st Individual Pursuit, Quito World Cup
1st Individual Pursuit, TokyoWorld Cup