Junior Track Cycling Wrap-up

The UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships have completed in Glasgow with WAIS athletes posting a highly successful campaign that yielded seven medals on the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome boards.

Following on from last week’s news that Tian Beckett and Sam Welsford had won world titles for Australia, both earned second medals from their respective campaigns, with fellow WAIS athletes Kelsey Robson and Elissa Wundersitz also earning medals from competition.

Australia’s women’s team pursuit quartet of Kelsey Robson, Macey Stewart (TAS), Lauren Perry (TAS) and Elissa Wundersitz broke a world record on the way to claiming the bronze medal after setting the fourth fastest time in qualifying.

The team looked primed to secure a position in the gold medal ride when they built a solid lead in their ride against Great Britain.

However a clip of wheels brought down Stewart at the 2000m mark, with Robson, Perry and Wundersitz continuing to the finish and Perry later revealing she had pulled a foot at the start.

The added load took its toll on the trio, with Australia posting the fourth fastest time of 4mins 46.183secs, just enough to secure a spot in the bronze medal final.

In a sensational rebound, the team put aside their qualifying hiccup in the final against the Italian outfit, breaking the world record with a scorching time of 4mins 38.246secs.

However their supremacy was short-lived with the Great Britain side bettering the Australian’s new mark just minutes later with their time of 4mins 36.147secs. Russia took the silver medal (4:39.122).

“It was really messy, but the things that happened were out of our control, Lauren pulling a foot and Macey coming down was just bad luck,” said 17 year-old Robson.

“But we just had to pull our heads together and get ready for finals racing and we certainly did that.

“Yes, not being able to race Great Britain in the final was a bummer, it was the final everyone wanted to see, but that wasn’t to be. So we rode for the time and we rode to break the world record.

“When they (Great Britain) broke it again, we were like hats off to them they had the best ride of the day and thoroughly deserved it.

“At least we can say we held it, even if only for a few minutes,” added Robson.

Tian Beckett collected her second world championship medal, adding bronze in the 500m time trial to the world title she won in the team sprint.

The 17 year-old covered the two laps in 36.132secs, but it was not fast enough to eclipse the time of Great Britain’s Dannielle Khan (35.456) who took gold ahead of Melissandre Pain (35.926).

Elissa Wundersitz claimed a second medal on day four of competition, winning silver in the women’s points race.

After 56 laps, Wundersitz formed part of a six-rider breakaway – with eventual gold medallist Arianna Fidanza (ITA) and bronze medallist Hayley Jones (GBR) – which eventually lapped the field.

Wundersitz collected three intermediate sprint wins throughout the race, however finished second in the final sprint to Fidanza to be pipped by just one point on the standings 39 to 38.

The final day of competition in Scotland added a final medal for the Australian team with Sam Welsford partnering South Australian Joshua Harrison for bronze in the men’s madison.

The event was highlighted by a series of crashes and attacks and unfortunately for the Australians they were affected by both.

Just moments after claiming the second intermediate sprint, Welsford fell heavily, forcing Harrison to take the workload as he was checked by team doctors. By the time Welsford had gallantly returned to the race, the damage had been done by Denmark, New Zealand and Great Britain who had launched a decisive attack.

With the Australians down a lap, but ahead on points, they made a number of attempts to regain their early advantage, but all the efforts were negated by the field and they were forced to settle for bronze behind Denmark and New Zealand.

Australia finished top of the medal table at the culmination of competition with 12 medals – six gold, one silver and five bronze.

– with CyclingAustralia