Local riders post great performances
THE Leongatha Cycling Club had great weather for its annual promotion of junior road racing, the Junior Experience, with great support from the principal sponsor – the Inverloch branch of the Bendigo Community Bank – and a good turnout of club members as officials/helpers for all the racing and canteen duties.
The club had a good number of riders including several novice riders having their first taste of competition at a wider level than just club racing.
The weekend featured a four event on Saturday at the Wonthaggi Recreation Reserve where riders tried their luck at a time trial, a straight line sprint, a criterium and a scratch race.
The Sunday saw racing relocate to Outtrim for the first order of the day, is the State Hill Climb Championship races up Mt Misery, followed by a road handicap race.
There were riders from Warragul, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and all the metropolitan clubs.
Racing was for the following age groups for both boys and girls – Under17, Under15, Under 13 and Under 11 years.
Our more seasoned riders had a really successful weekend whilst our new riders to the sport had a great time trying the events and feeling they can be a part of the activities.
All came away with some reward for the weekend.
Whilst our riders who had success at the recent Country Titles were all to the fore again, the addition of some metro riders added another layer to the competition.
Austin Timmins (Men’s 17) was the best performer over the weekend winning the time trial, criterium, scratch race and straight line sprint, however, on Sunday he had another rider to contend with and had to settle for second in the hill climb and third in the road race.
However it was a great performance over the two days.
Zach Stubbs-Taylor was second in the B Grade M17 hill climb.
In the Women’s 17 Division, Grace McLean also performed really well but had a national track champion to contend with. Her efforts on Saturday yielded seconds in the time trial, sprint, criterium and third in the scratch race.
On Sunday she did not contest the hill climb but again took second in the road race.
Felicity Waddell of the Warragul club was third in the hill climb and third in the road race.
The club had a large contingent in the Men’s 15 Division.
Oliver McLean had a busy time trying to counter the influx of A Grade riders and whilst not successful in all events showed plenty of determination to prevail in some.
For Saturday, he claimed a win in the A Grade scratch race and time trial, second in the criterium and third in the sprint. Thomas Fitzgerald was second in the B Grade scratch race and second in the B Grade criterium.
Kaleb Jans was second in the C Grade criterium and third in the B Grade scratch race.
On the Sunday, McLean was second in the hill climb whilst Jans was first in the B Grade hill climb with Jack Allen also running second in this event.
They all rode well in the handicap event but missed on the podium.
Over the weekend there was track racing on Saturday night at the Disc Indoor Velodrome in Melbourne.
Thomas McFarlane was back in action and won the Kierin and Sprint events.
This night of racing also robbed the Junior event of some competitors in the Under 17 Division.
Next weekend the club racing is at Bena for criterium racing along the section of old highway just to the east of the town. This is a tough course and will see some graded scratch events.
The club expects some of the Warragul riders to attend so the numbers should be good in the various grades.
Pushing it: Max Leiner (Carnegie-Caulfield) and Oliver McLean (Leongatha) battled it out for the intermediate sprint during the Men’s U/15A criterium at Wonthaggi on Saturday.
Short URL: /?p=18302
Posted by Sarah Vella on Apr 27 2016. Filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
