We had a fantastic turnout for the 2015 Armidale Cycling Club Junior Championships on Saturday with some very close racing across three grades. All riders raced in three events per grade – Individual Time Trial (ITT), Handicap Race and Scratch Race with points awarded based on position for each of the three events. Up to five bonus points were on offer to riders for improving on their Personal Best (PB) times which have been the mainstay of the Development Program for the last year.
Overall Results
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With C-Grade off first, Rosie Harris and Imogen Hale both smashed their PB times in the ITT with Rosie taking an early lead courtesy of a powerful 2m:40s time for the 1.2km course. Imogen then won the handicap race with brother Zach second to level things up ahead of the showdown scratch race which Rosie, clearly in determined mood, won handsomely having led from the start to take overall victory in C-Grade.
In B-Grade, only 2 seconds could separate Lucy Cook from Jacqueline Tracey in the ITT with Jacqueline squaring things up with a win in the handicap. The pair then lapped together for the whole of the final scratch race with Lucy taking the win by a single bike length to claim overall B-Grade honours.
And so to A-Grade with four great competitors who fought out an excellent tactical contest. In the ITT, Tom Simmonds recorded a blistering 1:44 with David Cook just one second down on that time. In the handicap race David and Tom made decent inroads each lap on the pair ahead but didn’t quite manage to make contact with Hugh and Sam. Hugh won the sprint although Sam ran him pretty close and then David had the legs to take third place from Tom but all four riders raced very well and the crowd looked forward to the showdown scratch race. Not surprisingly all four worked and stayed together in this one with some good tactics being employed as they lapped at a good pace, each rider taking their turns. On the final hill, David Cook was right to attack as he knew Hugh would be too strong in the sprint, he seemed to have managed to get a gap as the riders disappeared out of sight but as they came back into view it was Hugh Munday who was going full gas down the home straight to win from David with an excellent finish. With Tom and David level on points, Tom was declared the winner on the basis of his ITT time – just one second faster than David.
It was a fantastic day, the weather held out and clearly Armidale Cycling Club has a great future. Well done to Tom Simmonds as our overall 2015 Junior Club Champion and to David Cook as runner-up. Congratulations to all our junior riders who conducted themselves very well across all events and grades with an excellent standard of racing throughout.
Special thanks goes to Mark Bullen for running the race, acting as Commissaire on the day, to Deb and Karlee McMillan for timekeeping, Jason Tracey and Phil Thomas for sweeping the course and to Dave McMillan for doing a sterling job on the BBQ. Thanks also to all senior club riders, families and everyone else who came along to help out and support Armidale Cycling Club put on a great day out.
Individual Time Trial Results
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Handicap Race Results
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Scratch Race Results
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