Although final results from last Sunday’s Blaney to Bathurst 110K road race are still proving hard to come by, we now have all other results from the weekend, and coupled with some kerb-side stories we can now bring you a much-awaited report on the 2014 NSW Hill Climb Championships and the Bathurst Criterium Races.
Firstly, to our two new NRS riders who were competing in 3 events across the weekend and who placed 7th and 8th in the Saturday Hill Climb JM19 category. Harrison Munday recorded a time of 9:56s and Sam Jenner was right behind him with a 9:58s in a field of 21 riders. In the criterium, both riders raced in the Mens Aces event which was a combined class event that included riders from Elite Mens, Mens Masters and U23 riders as well as their JM19 category and even in this company they finished 17th (H) and 31st (Sam).
Back to the Hill Climb on the previous day and in the Mens Masters 5 category, Andrew Swan came away with the bronze medal and was just 2 seconds off silver with a time of 10:33s in a field of 19. This was a much faster time than he achieved last year and he had a grin from ear to ear for the rest of the day when he realised the result. Check out the podium shot of Swanny and you’ll realise why he says he’s going to shave his head next time as clearly that’s the final ranking mechanism. And that wasn’t the end of the medals – Jo Wauch won gold in the Womens Masters 6 category with a time of 13:10s which was 46s faster than last year and Col also won gold in the Mens Masters 9 category recording 11:32s.
Aside from winning gold in his event yet again, a little known and quite incredible fact is that Col has competed in every one of the NSW Hill Climb Championships since they started in 2001. He was won gold on all but one occasion across the age groups he has competed in. The only time he didn’t win the event was in 2003 when he still claimed the silver medal at Mt Sugarloaf near Newcastle. That year Col was not quite at his best as he was recovering from a major crash a few months earlier where he’d suffered multiple broken ribs, broken scapula and a punctured lung – so we’ll let him off that one with a pretty good excuse!
In the Blayney to Bathurst (110km Long Course) on Sunday things went well for Lachie McPhee and Col but Swanny had a tyre mishap early in the event and lost the main group when he was forced to stop and check it out. Lachie and Col stayed with the main bunch of the Red Wave start (2nd group expecting to average 35 to 40km/hr) and went over the mountain climb at the front of the field. Col got into the first group over the top with Lachie in the second group and these two groups combined on the run in to Bathurst. By all accounts Lachie played a big part in getting his group up to Col’s and they were both together in a group of about 20 when they turned to climb up to the finish at the Pits at Mt Panorama Racing Circuit. We still don’t have the official results but we think Col was 2nd or 3rd over the line with Lachie just a bit further back.
So all in all, a fantastic weekend of racing from ACC riders. You can see full official results here from the Hill Climb and from the Criterium. We will add the B2B results when they’re officially published and you can see a few more photos of our riders in action and on the podium over on the Gallery Pages.