Red Hot State Champs

23 Jan 2017 by David Fitzsimons

Last weekend saw the running of the U15 and U17 State Champs at DISC. It is the final attempt for the juniors to stake a claim for State Team selection for the Nationals to be held on Feb 22nd in Sydney. All up we had 3 x U15 riders across the 4 events and 4 x U17 riders across the events. (ITT, IP, Sprints, Kierin)

The U15s of Tarun Cook and Ben Fitzsimons, as bottom age U15s were there for the experience and to gain some valuable race time at this level.(juniors all competing for spots on the state teams) . It also gave them great benchmark times to work on across all the disciplines. Tarun Cook had a great F200 , qualifying 4th fastest and just missing out in a semi final spot for the match sprints. Its good experience for the Dad’s too , making sure they are pro-handlers for when it really counts, pedal position is really important.

Sophie Marr came to compete on the Sunday and again as a bottom age U15 took away some valuable race experience against a very strong field.

The 4 x U17s of Nathan Bowden, Johnathon Marr, Sam Gallagher and Harry Morgan were up for some hard racing. Nathan and Johnathon both bottom age raced against some “big” guns and with another 12 months of experience and growth will be challenging for the top honours next year.

But the story of the weekend was that of 4 x U17 Titles available G , Blackburn got 2 x Gold and 2 Silver (the haul of a nation at Olympic level). On Saturday Sam Gallagher won silver in the 500m ITT just narrowly missed out to Graeme Frislie who broke 34 secs to get his win.

The Individual Pursuit Gold Medal was won by Harry Morgan in a great time of 2:19 secs , by all accounts he has more to go.

On the Sunday it was a day for the Sprinters. Sam posted a F200 11.3secs again narrowly missing out to GF who posted 11.2 (these are fast times @ 65kmh). In the GoldMedal final , Sam fought hard but Graeme just pipped him to the Gold Medal.

Sam was not disheartened and with his favourite event the Kierin still to come , he knew he could get one back. Which he did taking out the Gold in an emphatic fashion.

The U17s are awaiting confirmation of the State Team selection but with the riding performance they put on this weekend , they should be pretty confident that they will be heading to Sydney in Vic colours. Their hard work and the hard work of their dedicated coach Emerson Hardwood we are sure will pay off.

Congratulations to all riders who took part but especially to Harry and Sam. Great riding boys and girls. Your parents and club is very proud of you.

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