Fulton cleans up on, off the track
Shaane Fulton is already thinking ahead to potentially bigger prizes after picking up a hat-trick of junior titles at last week’s Oceania track cycling championships at the Avantidrome in Cambridge .
The 17-year-old Waimea College student’s impressive efforts in winning the under-19 women’s 500m time trial, keirin and sprint titles brought a successful competitive season to a satisfying conclusion.
She then capped off a memorable week by being named Junior Sportswoman of the Year at Saturday’s Nelson Sports Awards following her selection in the New Zealand team for the UCI junior track world championships in Italy in August.
Fulton actually missed Saturday’s awards as she was still travelling home from Cambridge with her mother, Karen. It meant that her grandmother, Christine van Hoppe, stepped up to accept Shaane’s trophy, with a text from her father, Dean, who also attended the dinner, confirming that she’d won the award.
Fulton began last week’s successful Oceania campaign by lead- ing home a Kiwi trifecta to win gold in Monday’s 500m time trial in 35.891sec, beating New Zealand’s Sophie-Leigh Bloxham (36.394sec) and Marshall (37.11sec) onto the top of the podium. She’d also won the qualifying round from Bloxham and Western Australia’s Rihana Pezaj, the Australian finishing fourth in the final.
She followed that with a win in Tuesday’s keirin final, finishing ahead of Southland’s Madeleine Gough and New Zealand’s Nicole Marshall in the six-lap final, having previously beaten Gough and Queensland’s Skye Robson in the heats.
She beat Marshall 2-0 to win gold in Wednesday’s sprint final, clocking 12.966sec in race one and 12.325sec in race two, having earlier beaten Gough 2-0 in the semifinals. She’d recorded a similar 2-0 win over New Zealand’s Jessica Banks in the quarterfinals after qualifying first in 11.747sec.
Fulton had also combined with Bloxham to contest the 15km madison event, eventually finishing sixth.
Despite the absence of some leading Australian riders, Fulton said that it was still a demanding week.
‘‘It would have been cool to see a few more Aussies there,’’ she said.
‘‘The whole week really drained me, it was pretty tiring and you definitely had to keep on top of everything to make sure you got the best sleep and best nutrition possible to keep going for the next day.
‘‘Obviously every competition I go into I want to do the best I can. After I got back from junior worlds I had a break and then got back into things and I really only had about seven weeks of training going into the Oceanias.
‘‘And to be honest, I had no idea how I was going. I’d felt pretty bad in all my training sessions, then I got up there and ended up going pretty well, which was a surprise.
‘‘My 500 and my sprint qualifying were the same times I rode at junior worlds which was a shock. I was like ‘whoa, where’s this come from’.’’
This time there will only be a couple of days break before Fulton’s back in training for February’s nationals in Invercargill.
‘‘I had a big enough break after worlds.’’
She certainly won’t be lacking motivation with re-selection in next year’s New Zealand team for the junior world championships in Switzerland again the big prize.
‘‘[Training] is hard, but you go through your different phases of training so it gets changed up quite a bit so you don’t necessarily get bored with the same stuff over and over again.
‘‘It would definitely be better if there was more racing going on throughout Nelson and the country, but I guess I do what I’ve got to do to go to nationals and then hopefully get selected for junior worlds again. That’s pretty much my motivation.
‘‘The goal for nationals is pretty much to press my case for that again.’’