Masterful ladies bring home medals from three-day meet
DUBBO Cycle Club recently had another successful salient; this time at the Masters NSW Track Titles, with the trio of Erica Lunney, Simone Grounds, and Emily Williams, taking a swag of medals home after a triumphant weekend of racing.
Day One witnessed Erica Lunney in the Women’s Master Three Division, opening the weekend of racing in the 3000-metre Individual Pursuit where she claimed a Gold medal against Toireasa Gallagher from Bathurst. Emily Williams in the Women’s Master One event replicated the results with a Gold in the same race with Simone rounding-off the first event with a silver in the Women’s Master Four division.
The three ladies then prepared for an explosive event – namely, the Teams Sprint – where each rider completes only one lap. The event involves the first rider getting the team started with the first lap, and then “swinging-up” and allowing the remaining riders to come through at top speed, the second rider then keeps-up the pace, and swings-up the track to allow the last rider to finish the event.
The three ladies completed the distance in a credible time of 57.67 seconds and took the Gold and top-spot on the podium.
Day Two featured sprint events being contested with good qualifying of all riders to keep in the top three. All ladies returned a fantastic result, with Simone, typically an endurance specialist, claiming silver. Erica and Emily gained the top-spot in taking gold in two very fast rides in their respective divisions.
The next event was the Women’s Open Teams pursuit over 4000-metres. Our very-own Erica and Simone, along with Toireassa from Bathurst, and Laurelea Moss from Coffs Harbour, tookout the event in a time of 5:43.028.
Lining-up yet again for the last event of the day, the scratch race, Simone and Erica both scored a medal each with a Bronze for Simone and a Gold for Erica.
Day Three rounded-off the competition with the Time Trial, Keirin, and
Point Score events being held.
For the 500-metre Time Trial, Simone was awarded silver in 41.238 seconds and Erica the Gold medal in a time of 39.063 seconds. In the Keirin racing, Erica again claimed Gold with her explosive strength while Simone, more suited to endurance, returned an awesome result in bagging silver.
In the final event, the Pointscore, riders are awarded points on sprint laps during the race. Erica claimed her eighth Gold medal for the event, and Simone a silver, in a closely-fought race in which she just missed out on top=spot.
Local riders have all prepared very well, and are now in the final stages of fine-tuning their fitness in readiness for the National Track Titles in Brisbane with Erica, Simone, and Emily, as well as Darrell Wheeler, to ride in the Master’s Division from Saturday, March 16 to Wednesday, March 20.
In other news, Emily Hines in the Under 17 Women’s Division is also competing a little earlier between March 13–17.