City in good shape for national series
MOUNTAIN BIKE MOUNTAIN Bike Australia CEO Shane Coppin says there is a desire to bring more national-level events to Smithfield in the wake of a successful 2017 UCI MTB World Championships.
While international guests raved about the course, so too did members of the Australian team, who rarely get the chance to race the world-class downhill and cross-country tracks. Despite the accolades, Cairns is not on the calendar for the 2017-18 Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) National Series, which includes both downhill and cross-country events.
Distance is the biggest hurdle for national-level riders, who do not command the same financial support to travel as the international professionals seen in action last weekend. Coppin said regular national series events would help See the images from the 2017 MTB World Champs at www.cairnspost.com.au maintain the legacy the recent World Cup and World Championship event had helped to build.
“I think you’ve got such a venue and such a facility and you want to keep promoting that here and you want to keep creating and reinforcing what you’ve developed here, what Glen Jacobs has developed and World Trail in this network and what the local club has contributed over the four years in really highlighting Cairns and this elite and fantastic trail work, and even on the Atherton Tablelands, you have a lot to promote,” he said.
“So national series, national rounds and things like that keep that on the forefront on promotion, and I think that extends your reach much greater than if you just regionalise.
“We just need to look at strategies to promote the area and get more people willing to travel for a national serieslevel event.”
Cairns Regional Council sport and community services committee member Cathy Zeiger said a bidding for a national event was a possibility.
“If everything adds up, definitely council would look at it,” she said. CAIRNS goalkeeper Ayana Aoyagi is in camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra this week in a bid for a national call-up.
Former Newcastle Jets ALeague coach Gary van Egmond is running the four-day Young Matildas camp for 23 of the nation’s best teen players.
Aoyagi came through the FNQ Heat academy system, but moved to Brisbane last year to pursue higher honours.
After playing at Brisbane club The Gap, she was invited to the Brisbane Roar National Training Centre program.
Aoyagi sat on the Roar bench for the final game of the most recent W-League season.
The Young Matildas are preparing to travel to China for the AFC U19 Women’s Championship.
The top three teams in the tournament will advance to the 2018 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in France. Australia has not qualified for the tournament in 12 years.
Brett Howard, who runs a goalkeeper academy in Cairns, said Aoyagi had progressed in “leaps and bounds”.
“I’m so pleased for her. With all the sacrifices she’s made, leaving her family and friends in Cairns and the work she puts in, it’s unbelievable,” he said.
“Her training ethic really is spot on. She’s one of the best students I’ve had.”