BRINGS GOLD Cure is up to scratch
TASMANIAN pocket rocket Amy Cure put the finishing touches to total team domination at the Anna Meares Velodrome last night when she won a thrilling 10km women’s scratch race in Brisbane.
A patient Cure, 25, timed her move to perfection at the finish, hitting the front with a lap to go and the field simply wasn’t strong enough to come around her as she beat Scotland’s Neah Evans and England’s Emily Kay.
But the win was built on the pure grunt work from her teammates Ashlee Ankudinoff and Annette Edmondson who covered every move earlier in the race to set a tempo in the closing stages that prevented any counter-attack.
“It was amazing,” Cure said. “I was a bit disappointed with my ride yesterday, but I come out today with a different mindset, and I wanted to give it everything.
“The girls backed me out there, they gave me everything, a perfect ride. I’m so happy I could bring it home, I can’t thank them enough.
“We went in there with a plan, and executed it perfectly, so it was great to come home with a win and to do it in front of a home crowd.”
The Aussies sat 1-2-3 on the front of the bunch with four laps to go when Ankudinoff buried herself with her head down and handed over to Edmondson who maintained the pace before Cure did her thing.
“It was a special win, not just for Amy, but for all of us,” Ankudinoff said.
“We came into this one to win and finish on a high, we have had a great Games, and this really tops it off.”
It was Cure’s second gold medal of the week after she was part of Australia’s successful women’s team pursuit on the opening night.
It was also her first individual Games gold after she won silver in the scratch race in Glasgow in 2014.
Cure is a two-time world champion in the team pursuit and points race but this may go down as her finest individual performance in front of a screaming home crowd.
It also made up for the disappointment of missing the podium in the women’s points race on Saturday where she was seen as a major player.
The gold medal was Australia’s ninth of the Games and came just minutes after Matthew Glaetzer broke the sea level world record on his way to winning the 1km time trial.
Australia set itself a target of winning eight gold medals across track, road and mountain bike at these Games and Cure made it job done with a week of racing still to come.