This year’s Under 19 National Championships were held in Victoria, based around the coastal city of Geelong. We were treated to three days of glorious sunshine in the middle of winter. I saw Taswegians in shorts and a T-shirt while, as always, the Queenslanders wore their full winter rig!
The first event was the time trial. The TT included two hilly laps of the You Yangs National Park as well as an almost flat ride along Branch Road, outside the park.
Sarah was pretty excited as I recently bought her a dedicated time trial bike. In theory, its aerodynamics should have carved a decent chunk of time off her time trial effort. Unfortunately, the fact that we had a 53 front chainring, not a 52, had somehow escaped Sarah and my notice in the preparation for the event, most likely due to a hectic week of exams and visits to the bike shop in the week prior! Luckily, she went to roll out (a check that requires the bike to not cover more than 7.93 m in one revolution of the pedals) about forty minutes before her event. This put our mechanical skills under time pressure and we managed a complete bike change! We took the clincher wheels off the road bike, the tubular wheels off the TT bike, the TT wheels back on the road bike, the transponder off the TT bike and back on the road bike, mounted clip on bars to the road bike, changed the Garmin mount across and removed the bottle cages. It was real team effort with the lovely Jenson from Hawthorn helping out, even though he had his own TT to prepare.
Sarah was pretty excited as I recently bought her a dedicated time trial bike. In theory, its aerodynamics should have carved a decent chunk of time off her time trial effort. Unfortunately, the fact that we had a 53 front chainring, not a 52, had somehow escaped Sarah and my notice in the preparation for the event, most likely due to a hectic week of exams and visits to the bike shop in the week prior! Luckily, she went to roll out (a check that requires the bike to not cover more than 7.93 m in one revolution of the pedals) about forty minutes before her event. This put our mechanical skills under time pressure and we managed a complete bike change! We took the clincher wheels off the road bike, the tubular wheels off the TT bike, the TT wheels back on the road bike, the transponder off the TT bike and back on the road bike, mounted clip on bars to the road bike, changed the Garmin mount across and removed the bottle cages. It was real team effort with the lovely Jenson from Hawthorn helping out, even though he had his own TT to prepare.
Then, with Sarah staying cool and calm throughout the process, there was still time to roll out legally, achieve an altered warm up and then it was off for a hard 17.7 kilometers. Sarah put in a fantastic ride. She could see she was catching Sophie from SA on the hill circuit inside the park, but once they were out on the road Sophie, in full TT set up, was pulling away at a constant rate. Sarah came home in fourth place, 22 seconds off Sophie who finished in third position, and one minute 37 sec down on the leader, the magnificent Madeleine Fasnacht from Tasmania. Anya Louw, also from Tasmania, rode her way into a silver medal, finishing one minute five seconds down on Maddie, and ten seconds up on Sophie. Maddie’s average time was 37.3 kilometers per hour, a fantastic effort for a hilly and technical course.
The next day was the road race, which was based around the Brisbane Ranges and started and finished in the small town of Anakie. The whole field knew that Madeleine was the wheel to watch and follow.
Everyone figured that Madeleine would break away early, as she had made an early solo breakaway at Oceanias in March , which resulted in a very solid first place. Sure enough, at a long steep hill at the 22 kilometer mark, Madeleine was putting the pressure on the field when Maeve Moroney-Plouffe from SA, in second wheel, began to lose touch. Sarah was sitting in fourth wheel, and seeing the gap opening, knew that she could not let Maddie go. So somehow she put in an enormous effort and flew off up the hill behind Maddie. There were a lot of strong riders in the front part of the field, but no one else took off to join them.
And so it was that at the 35k mark, from where we were spectating, we saw, behind an enormous convoy of about forty police motorbikes (the race had the whole road), two riders way in the distance. I declared I could see a touch of green (Sarah’s green helmet) and our little crowd became very excited! We were even more excited when we realised that Sarah was with Maddie!
Forty seconds after Sarah and Maddie came through, the peloton arrived. They were working hard, with Anya at the front, and looked to be putting in a good chase. Soon after the girls passed through, we spectators made our way back to the race finish, where the race commentary told us that the break had decreased to 28 seconds. Then, at the next update, we were told the break had extended to two minutes. We grinned wildly; it looked like Sarah and Maddie would stay away!
Sarah told us later that even though she was flat out from the time the break went, she was determined to stay with Maddie for just one more hill. And one more hill after that as well. She managed to do this many times, until the 50 kilometer mark, where Maddie simply pulled away and Sarah was left to time trial the last 16 kilometers home, knowing, thanks to the moto scouts, that a group of nine riders were hot on her heels!
Ten minutes before the predicted finish time, a happy Madeleine arrived at the finish line, with Sarah nowhere in sight. It was back to a nervous wait, until we saw a solo rider, way in the distance. And, yes, I could spot the green; it was Sarah, claiming silver, and still a good minute in front of the peloton. Then, a minute later, the peloton arrived completely split up from the last steep ascent, six kilometres from the finish line. It was a fantastic ride by Queensland cyclist and triathlete, Caitlin Broadley, who, in her fourth ever road race, powered home to take the bronze. She had attacked on the 400 metre-long hill and soloed home. Then it was a spread out sprint finish, with Alexandra Martin-Wallace (Qld) and Anya Louw taking out fourth and fifth respectively.
The final event was a criterium held at Eastern Beach in Geelong. The criterium was thirty minutes and three laps long, with each lap including a short and steep hairpin at the eastern end. Everyone was keen to see if the highly talented Maddie could make it three gold from three events!
Despite her efforts to recover from the road race the day before, Sarah claimed that she had woken up with ‘dead legs’. However, as always, Sarah loves a criterium and is never one to throw away an opportunity. For most of the thirty minutes she marked Maddie, sitting close by or on her wheel. Right from the start, the attacks were on. Alexandra Martin-Wallace began the series of attacks, Georgia O’Rourke from Victoria put in a solid attack midway and Renee Dykstra (Tas) also put in a serious attack in the later stages, but each attack was reeled in. I thought Sarah looked a little tired, as she was sometimes drifting to the back of the pack, but then, after sitting second wheel for just over a lap, with half a lap to go, I saw her move up along the outside and race up the hill for the 250 metre sprint to the line. It was a nailbiter, with four riders neck and neck as they sprinted for the line. It was a double photo finish, with track riders Jade Haines (WA) and Alexandra Martin-Wallace deciding first and second while Sarah and Maddie were a very close third and fourth. The final podium was gold to Jade, silver to Alex and bronze to Sarah! It was an exciting finish to three great days of racing!
We all went home invigorated with the depth and quality of this field of Under 19 girls. We look forward to watching from afar as a few of these girls compete at Junior Worlds in September this year.
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