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.
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