Cycling Southland News Archive

A great night of racing had by all!! The heat's coming on in the A Grade especially as the track season gets well and truely underway. 

Cycling Southland's Sophie Williamson earned a top 20 finish in her first appearance at the World Juniors Road Championships in Copenhagen tonight, finishing the 70 kilometre journey in 18th place while older brother James was unlucky to get caught behind a crash in the final stages of the U23 Men's race.

Friday night is going to be a dramatic one for one particular Cycling Southland family as James and sister Sophie Williamson both line up at the start-line, representing their country at the World Road Championships in Copenhagen.

The showers forecast for Saturdays racing never eventuated and conditions were quite pleasant in behind the hedge where Lynette Mattingly was registering the riders. 

The H and J Outdoor Cycling team had a tough reintroduction to top level racing on the weekend, when they competed in the Twizel to Timaru and Benchmark series round 2 double header.

Fine warm conditions greeted the 51 riders that took part in Saturday's 50km Beast of the East road race which started from Te Tipua school.

After a morning of wet weather in Invercargill I decided to take all my warm & wet weather gear and head to Te Tipua for Saturday’s road race.  As we travelled out to the start the weather improved and by the time we lined up on the start line the sun was shining and the temperatures were in the mid teens.

Southland's road cycling team faces a gruelling weekend with 280 kilometres of racing. Cycling Southland's H&J Smith Outdoor World team will contest the Twizel to Timaru classic today and on Sunday the Southlanders will line up in a 128km Benchmark series race around Timaru.

Otago claimed a convincing victory in the annual interclub team time trial clash with Southland in Outram on Saturday.

Otago claimed a convincing victory in the annual interclub team trial clash with Southland in Outram on Saturday. But it wasn’t all plain sailing for Otago with strong performances from Southland to win the master’s women’s race along with the under-17 girl’s event, while the master’s men 2 came second in their category.

On Friday I was very fortunate to be invited to take part in an Observer Tour to take a behind-the-scenes look at an outstanding international event being staged in our own back yard, the 2011 Winter Games.

Saturdays race turned out to be an exciting handicap that saw the majority of the field come together with only 500m to the finish line, well done Waine (handicapper).

We had a great night at the track on Friday with some really fun and positive racing. Smaller numbers saw us combining a couple of grades which worked well and it was awesome to see some B grade riders mixing it up in A Grade.

Cycling Southland is again strongly represented in BikeNZ Development’s junior track squads named for training camps in Invercargill with an eye to the upcoming Oceania Championships at the ILT Velodrome in November.

The curtain has dropped on the 2011 UCI Juniors World Track Championships in Moscow and the New Zealand squad ended the five days of competition on Sunday night with 10 medals and 3 fourth-places from 16 events entered, arguably the best result by any group of cyclists at a World Championship.

This week’s Saturday Road Race saw an outstanding turnout with 90 riders (including the Junior Div) competing in the 43km race starting at Gorge Road Country Club and looping around Seaward Downs, Mokotua and back along the Invercargill-Gorge Road Highway.

Cycling Southland's Steph McKenzie has opened her campaign at the UCI Junior World Track Championships in Moscow with a bronze medal this morning (NZ time).

Two of Cycling Southland’s young stars are in Russia for the 2011 UCI World Junior Track Championships which started overnight in Moscow. Alexandra’s Sophie Williamson and Stephanie McKenzie of Invercargill are part of an 11-strong squad who will compete for world titles and the coveted rainbow jersey over the next five days.

A big turnout of riders today for the Waianiwa-Northope-Drummond-Waianiwa 46km graded handicap race, being the first handicap race off the Spring Road calendar.

The Police 5-Os dominated yesterday’s running of Cycling Southland’s Harrex Group-sponsored Corporate Pursuit winning Division One at the ILT Velodrome.