Field and Cummings star; 10 CCCC riders in Vic Track team
It has been a busy time on the track for our junior stars with competitions at State and International level, and recent announcement of the Victorian State Track team to contest the Junior Track nationals in Adelaide in March.
Courtney Field pulled on her first Australian jersey when she was selected as the only under-age rider at the recent Australian Youth Olympics in Sydney. Courtney had an outstanding meet winning two gold medals and a silver, as well as an exhibition keirin race. Courtney teamed with Tian Beckett (WA) to record a new U19 Australian Allcomers record in the Team Sprint of 35.364 seconds – not bad for an U17 rider! In the individual sprint, Courtney won the final for Gold in two straight races, and was unlucky to be boxed in during the keirin race but still forced her way into second spot. She made no mistake later in the evening when she won an exhibition keirin race, with daylight second.
The recent Victorian Junior State Track Championships saw a huge number of Carnegie riders in action, many competing in their first championships.
The podiums were littered with CCCC riders, many taking many multiple medals. Georgia Cummings made it a clean sweep of four golds at DISC which added to her Points and Scratch Race Championships earned earlier in the season meant she achieved the extraordinary feat of taking out all six Victorian track titles in her age group. This is all the more remarkable given she is a first year U15.
In the U15M, Tom Benton’s consistency, with four fourth places, has earned him a place in the Victorian Junior Track Team.
Recent arrivals from Perth, Brook and Gary Ramshaw both took home a swag of medals with Gary winning the U17M Sprint and Time trial, and Brook winning gold in the 500mTT, and silver and bronze in other events.
David Koroknai is already showing the benefits of switching to Hilton Clarke’s Sprint squad, earning two bronze medals in the Sprint and TT.
The race of the weekend was undoubtedly the final of the U17M 2000m pursuit where James Tickner and Caiden Hull went at it hammer and tongs and the gap never being more than a fraction of a second. Ultimately James prevailed to take gold by a few tenths of a second.
Victorian Junior Track team
There were an incredible 10 Carnegie riders selected for the 2013 Victorian Junior Track Cycling Team, reflecting once again the strength of our Junior Development Programme.
Congratulations to the following Carnegie riders:
Tom Benton (U15M)
Georgia Cummings (U15W)
Alana Field (U15W)
Gary Ramshaw (U17M)
David Koroknai (U17M)
James Tickner (U17M)
Caiden Hull (U17M)
Thomas Verlys-Donk (U17M)
Courtney Field (U17W)
Brook Ramshaw (U17W)
Congratulations to all the CCCC members selected for the Nationals and to ALL those selected in the State Team from all clubs. I missed the TT’s on Saturday morning but did see pursuit heats and finals that day. On Sunday saw both sessions and enjoyed the weekend of racing at a high standard.
All the best with your training up to your Nationals.
I also missed the TT’s on Saturday morning, but watched the pursuits, sprints and keirins.
Unfortunately the scoreboard at DISC wasn’t working, which meant we were reliant on the excellent commentary for knowing the splits in the pursuit finals. I noticed that Caiden and James started their pursuit “ride off” in warm-up … facing each other on the rollers!
With so many CCCC juniors competing, the section of the crowd consisting of CCCC parents/spectators made lots of noise on many occasions. The results don’t give Freya Wickenden’s efforts in the sprint events justice – extremely close to Brook in Round 1; just 6th (behind Emily Dunk) in the close 5th-8th sprint final; and she made the keirin final as well.
What was also pleasing to see was the big circle of chairs where the CCCC juniors were sitting together, chatting and cheering each other on between heats/races. Others just came to watch. Sam McCabe had crashed and injured his shoulder the previous weekend (Echuca), so he was there to cheer on the others (although cursing he couldn’t race himself!)
I was very impressed with Freya Wickenden’s racing Penny. Not knowing her background she did look very inexperienced Penny but has the potential to improve significantly into a very powerful sprinter, given correct coaching and race experience. In actual fact her inexperience saw her miss a medal in her Keirin final.
As for the riders from ALL clubs not just CCCC their interaction off the bike is fantastic to witness. They are all out to nail each other on the track but off the bike they are fantastic together and better than in my young days.