Australian Women’s Pursuit to Ride for Bronze in World Cup
The Australian women’s teams pursuit trio of Melissa Hoskins (WAIS-AIS), Annette Edmondson and Josie Tomic (WAIS-AIS) will ride for bronze at the UCI London Track World Cup after recording the third fastest time in qualifying.
The Australian girls required a restart after technical malfunction with the opening gates left lead out rider Hoskins stranded as her team mates rolled from the line without her.
The team returned to the warm up area to await a restart. After ten minutes of testing the gate officials called them back to the line.
“I didn’t go very far, the gate didn’t open,” said Hoskins. “As if you are not nervous enough then a start like that but we recomposed ourselves. It actually happened to us at nationals (as well). We recomposed, got out there and rode a solid time to qualify.”
“I don’t think it affected us,” said Tomic. “It is really promising heading into worlds. We have been out of the medals in the last year or so (and) there has been a lot going on behind the scenes and I think tonight showed we have plenty to come.”
In fact the team’s qualifying time for the 3000 metres of 3.21.426 shaved one thousandth of a second off the previous Australian record set by West Australia’s state line up of Tomic, Hoskins and Isabella King at the 2011 track nationals at Sydney’s Dunc Gray Velodrome.
“We wanted to go a little bit faster but we are on our way,” said Edmondson. “We know our time is up there going into the world championships in April.”
Great Britain (Laura Trott, Wendy Houvenaghel and Joanna Rowsell) rode after the Australians and whilst they started quickly they faded to finish in 3.21.370, scraping in ahead of the Australians by only .056. But no one could match the time of 3:20.785 set by Canadians Tara Whitten, Gillian Carleton and Jasmin Glaesser.
In Friday’s bronze medal final the Australians, with Amy Cure coming in to replace Melissa Hoskins, will race against the Netherlands who clocked 3.22.776 to be fourth fastest. Great Britain and Canada will contest the gold medal race.
Australia’s team pursuit men set the fastest qualifying time and will face off against Great Britain for gold on Sunday.
The quartet for the men’s event included reigning world champions Jack Bobridge, Michael Hepburn and Rohan Dennis as well as 2011 junior world champion Alex Edmondson.
Australia was the second last team of 18 to post a time and, of the teams ahead of them, only Great Britain (Steven Burke, Edward Clancy, Peter Kennaugh and Geraint Thomas) had ridden under the magic four minute barrier. The venue was close to capacity and a wall of sound erupted to spur on the British team who clocked an impressive 3.58.446 for the 4000 metres.
That gave the Australians a target to aim for as to guarantee a start in the gold medal ride and with Russia scheduled to ride after them, they had to better the British mark They started slower than the British but built momentum quickly to be the fastest team through the one kilometre mark. It was a lead they maintained to the end where they stopped the clock in 3.57.885, half a second quicker than Great Britain.
“That felt really smooth,” said Bobridge after the ride which was scheduled just after 9.30pm. “It was good to get a hit out on the track (and) it is a bit different tonight with the qualifying so late at night. Normally you can get that blow out early in the morning and the cobwebs are normally flushed out.
“We can’t complain with that ride. It was smooth, fast and in control the whole time.”
The Australia versus Great Britain showdown is scheduled for Sunday and Bobridge predicts it will be a fast one.
“Come the final we will be on the track to win and it will be interesting to see what (time) we can do,” he said. “It is only a new track for it to be that fast already is a good sign for things to come. Give the boards another six months and a bit more racing on it then come the Games there will be some very quick times for sure.”
Also in action on Friday for the Cyclones will be WAIS-AIS athlete Luke Durbridge in the points race and Melissa Hoskins in the women’s scratch race. Team sprint action is also on the program with reigning world champions and record holders Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch in the seventh of the ten heats (raced two teams at a time). The Australian men’s team sprint trio will ride in the fifth of nine qualifying heats.
340 riders from 48 nations and 18 trade teams are contesting the four-day competition that is the official test event for the 2012 Olympic Games. It is the last round of the four round series that kicked off in Astana last November before heading to Colombia in December and China last month. After the World Cup Series the world’s best cyclists will head to Melbourne to contest the 2012 UCI Track World Championships from 4 to 8 April. The Australian Cyclones for the world championships will be named on 14 March.
-Cycling Australia