Points Shield Defense Underway

I write this from inside the ILT Velodrome watching some of Cycling Southland’s junior riders put the finishing touches on preparations for this week’s Age Group Track Championships. After three days of Elite Champs, there has been enough action to fill this column many times over.

Natasha Hansen’s absolute domination of the Women’s sprint events has been something to behold. Much has been made of the men’s sprint programme’s development over the last 18 months but Tash has shown that the fairer sex will be joining them sooner rather than later, competing on the world stage.

The BikeNZ sprinters came out to play last night with powerful Southland and Auckland Team Sprint three-somes going at it. Simon van Velthooven and Southland’s Matt Archibald have been trading blows all weekend and have proved a class above the rest, squaring off last night in the Men’s Sprint Final.

The Elite Men’s field may be missing some big names – but one big man loomed large over the event this past weekend. Jason Allen hasn’t had an easy time recently. Even though he rides for Tasman, he is a Christchurch resident. Somehow he was able to put his recent personal turmoil to one side to take out the Individual Pursuit, ahead of Cam Karwowski and then back up on Saturday night to also claim the Scratch race title from another Southland rider, Lee Evans.

The Women’s events have been notable for the total domination of the Points Race on Saturday night by NZ representative Rushlee Buchanan who took three laps on the field to take gold in style. Her battle with Gemma Dudley and Southland’s Sequoia Cooper in the Omnium has been a feature of the championships.

Special mention also to Phillipa Gray and Laura Thompson who lowered the National record in the Para-Cycling Tandem 1000m. Under the tutelage of master coach Nick Harris, their recent development has been rapid and their confidence will have been boosted significantly heading to the World Champs in Italy in a few weeks time.

In many respects the past three days of competition has been something of a dry run for this week’s Age Group Champs when over 220 riders will compete across age categories ranging from Under-15 to Masters 55+.

Southland has taken an early lead in the battle for the National Points Shield. But with another five full days of racing, we are only just getting started.

The Age Group Championships start Tuesday and run through until Saturday. Sessions are to be held daily from 10am and 6.30pm. Tickets are available from Stadium Southland with discounted Seasons and Family Passes available.

You can also follow all of the action with live track-side text commentary, updated as it happens, along with full results, race reports and photos at the Cycling Southland website – cyclingsouth.org.nz.

We are very proud of what our Elite riders have achieved. Now it’s over to our young and not so young riders to keep that shield under lock and key at the ILT Velodrome.

Dawkins Story Latest to Captivate

Rarely a week goes by in the sport of cycling where there isn’t something that captivates you.

This weekend it was an incredible finish to the UCI World Cup Men’s Keirin final featuring our own Eddie Dawkins. Big Eddie was powering to the finish and looking good for the silver medal, behind the legendary Sir Chris Hoy when some carnage behind him brought down all but two of the final field. Despite fighting hard, Dawkins couldn’t stay upright after having his rear wheel clipped and he hit the track hard at 70kph. But you can’t keep a southern man down and he somehow picked himself up and ran (or perhaps more accurately limped), dragging his bike, down the straight to the finish line. Ultimately he was given fifth place, but there is no doubt that in terms of guts and determination, it was a gold-medal winning performance. If you visit www.cyclingsouth.org.nz you can see video footage of the dramatic final stages of the race.

Eddie now has a lot less skin on his right shoulder than when he started the final so it may not be a comfortable flight home, but he has proved why you should be buying your tickets to the National Track Champs which start this Friday in Invercargill. You just never know what will happen.

The performance of the NZ team in Manchester over the past three days has again shown the depth growing at an Elite level and has provided the perfect lead-in to the RaboDirect-sponsored Nationals this week at the ILT Velodrome.

Over 280 riders and over 80 team officials from the 11 cycling centres around New Zealand will descend on Invercargill at week’s end. When you add in family members and supporters you get a sense of the input this event has to the local economy. Here are some more numbers for you; eight days of racing, each with day and evening sessions; 92 national titles to be decided across 14 age groups; over 50 event volunteers per session and close to 4000 volunteer hours to deliver these championships. Makes me tired simply thinking about it.

The Southland team got together on Friday night, to lay out preparations for its defence of the National Points Shield. It is certainly the largest squad we have put together and each of our 75 riders has earned their spot on merit. The more heartening news is that it is also the best-prepared team we have ever put out. There’s a great feeling in the squad and even though there are some high profile names among them, the focus is on team performance. You can look through every age group from juniors to masters to elites and know our province will be well-served.

There’s no doubt home track advantage plays its part and the bigger the crowd and better the atmosphere, the faster they ride.
So that’s where we all come in. Grab your tickets. If you don’t, as Eddie again proved yesterday morning, you will more than likely miss something special.

Points Shield Defense Looms

The largest ever Southland track cycling team was last  announced to defend the National Points Shield at the RaboDirect National Track Championships at Invercargill’s ILT Velodrome later this month.

A total of 76 riders will wear the Southland skinsuit over the Elite and Age Group Championships, each looking to help the host centre retain the symbol of regional track cycling supremacy. The country’s 11 Cycling Centres suit up with points awarded to each Centre for the top three riders in each event over the eight days of competition.

Last year Southland wiped the board registering a total of 110 points from Auckland (61) and Canterbury (42). This prompted some new upstart CEO to claim it one of the most dominant Southland sporting performances of all time (incidentally I still stand by that).

Although final entries close today, word from further north is that those big centres have had enough of the southerners’ domination and are bring large contingents south. So this is something of a call-to-arms to get along to the ILT Velodrome and give the hometown heroes your support.

The Elite Champs run from Friday February 25th to 27th with sessions starting at 11am and 6.30pm while the Age Group Champs run from March 1st to 5th with daily action starting from 10am and 6.30pm.
Tickets are on sale now at Stadium Southland – adult prices are $10 for evenings and $5 for day sessions while kids are free. Plus there are discounted family and season passes available. Short story is ... it’s as cheap as chips.

To deliver an event like this takes the definition of a team effort. Our riders, coaches, team officials and event staff and volunteers have prepared well. Now all that’s left is a little fine-tuning over the next fortnight before the campaign for the Points Shield defence begins.

I hope you can give us a hand too.

The Southland squad is:

U 15 : Madeleine Gough, Makayla Smith, Bronwyn Graham, Josh Carpenter, Liam Haggerty, Hamish Beadle, Hayden Strong , Tom Sexton.

U 17 : Laura Heywood, Jennifer Muhl, Brooke Brazier, Libby Bayne, Michael Culling, Josh Haggerty, Jeremy Presbury, Liam Aitcheson, Nick Kergozou.

U 19 : Sophie Williamson, Kelsey Timpany, Sarah Tomlinson, Kate Dunlevey, Paigan Marshall, Georgia Timpany, Stephanie Mckenzie, Pieter Bulling, Tom Beadle, Jamie Culling , Marcel Baird , Paddy Daly, Ethan Thwaites, Tom Dawkins, Matt Zenovich, Chris Sexton.

Masters Men 3: Peter Grandiek, Ray Robinson, Bruce Jones, Colin Horton.

Masters Men 2: Richard Eade, Neil Jamieson, Wally Kopae, Neil Familton, Sier Vermunt, Ant Leathart, Roger Nicholas, Grant Toomey, Simon Lusk.

Masters Men 1: Michael White, Jerard Stock, Garry Smith, Derek Tan, Andrew Lienert.

Masters Women 1: Erin Criglington, Kylea Gough.

Masters Women 2: Marie Muhl, Sandra Kopae, Jac Dearlove.

Para-Cyclists: Phillipa Gray/Laura Thompson.

Elite Women: Sequoia Cooper, Dale Tye, Natasha Hansen, Kylie Young, Emma Gibb, Gabby Vermunt, Rebecca O’Donnell.

Elite Men: Tom Scully, Eddie Dawkins, Cameron Karwowski, Matt Archibald, Hamish Tomlinson, Lee Evans, Brehan Cairns, Dillon Bennett, Sean Fox, Matt Dodds, Karl Watson.

ILT Velodrome Future Assured

BikeNZ has this week reaffirmed its future support of the ILT Velodrome.

Cycling Southland Chief Executive Nick Jeffrey confirmed that he has received positive feedback from both SPARC and BikeNZ following formal notification that Southland would not submit a bid to host a National Cycling Centre of Excellence in Invercargill.

"We wanted to make clear that whilst we have no intention of committing significant local funds to further developing an already world class facility like the ILT Velodrome to fit the classification required by SPARC, we do wish to continue to play a significant role from both an events and training perspective in the future," Jeffrey said.

He and Stadium Southland General Manager Nigel Skelt co-signed a letter to the national organisations overseeing the Cycling Centre of Excellence tendering process on behalf of the Bike Southland consortium, which also included the Southland Mountain-bike and BMX Clubs and Sport Southland.

"We believed it was important to formally register our future aspirations. There can be no debate about what the ILT Velodrome has done for the sport of track cycling in New Zealand. We are now a world power. We are pretty proud of the contribution we have made to the High Performance end of the sport. I'm delighted BikeNZ have recognised that in their reply and re-emphasised the key role the ILT Velodrome will play in the future," Jeffrey said.

"We also left the door open for discussions, should a successful tenderer not be forthcoming or if a less financially-straining solution was sought," he said with a smile. "Anything we can do to help."

Jeffrey believes a number of positives have come out of the process.

"Obviously the recognition on the support we have given in the past is pleasing, but it's also got a great group of people together. Dave Brookland (MTB) and Ginge Burnett (BMX) have added a huge amount over the last few months and there are some exciting things ahead for all of the bike codes in terms of facility development, programmes and events through closer collaboration."

"Plus it has been a timely reminder that Cycling Southland and the ILT Velodrome's top priority must be serving and developing our grass-roots membership. Our facility and activities have been developed for Southlanders first and foremost. A wonderful by-product of what we have in the south, in terms of facility and people, is that we have been able to play a role on a national or, in the case of the 2012 Junior World Track Championships, international scale. But one should follow the other. If we go out chasing the national and international glory stuff then we have our priorities a little out of whack."

BikeNZ's High Performance squad has been again put through its paces this week at the ILT Velodrome. The team departs for the final UCI World Cup in Manchester this weekend before returning south in time for the RaboDirect National Elite and Age Group Championships from February 25th.

A copy of the Bike Southland letter can be found by clicking here.