A sustained sprint by promising young Invercargill cyclist, Tayla Lumsden, saw her take line honours in the Cycling Southland memorial race on Saturday.
Forty four riders faced the starter in McQuarrie Street for the 103km handicapped event in ideal conditions and from the outset the limit bunches made the most of their time allowances with the two front groups amalgamating at Waimahaka. Lumsden managed to foot it with her older and more experienced counterparts and took out the Letterbox hill climb at the halfway point of the race, from Colin Horton.
Approaching Seaward Downs, the front four front bunches had combined and continued to work together to keep the back bunches honest in the race home. Lumsden again prevailed in the second prime, the Gorge Road hill climb with Tony Raggett taking second place.
Back in the race, the scratch riders featuring Matt Zenovich, Corbin Strong, Josh Haggerty and Luke Macpherson were making progress but with the relatively calm conditions suiting the front riders, it was always going to be a difficult task to pick up the 50 minute handicap. With 15kms remaining, the 10-strong front group was being driven mainly by Alan Strong and Andrew Holden with other riders also contributing and it became apparent that the likely winner was going to emerge from this group.
With the finish line in sight, the sprint finish was initiated by Alan Strong who appeared to cramp up in the run home and Tayla Lumsden seized the opportunity and made her dash for victory with the tenacious teenager fending off a strong challenge from Wally Kopae to claim the title. Third place went to Johnathan Todd ahead of Andrew Holden.
All eyes then turned to the fast finishing scratch bunch headed in by Josh Haggerty with Corbin Strong close behind, finishing less than 5 minutes behind the overall winner.
Placings:
1 Tayla Lumsden Winning time: 3 hours 14 minutes 26 seconds
2 Wally Kopae
3 Johnathan Todd
4 Andrew Holden
5 Craig Sadlier
6 Allan Milne
Fastest time
1 Joshua Haggerty Time: 2 hours 28 minutes 34 seconds
First Woman: Tayla Lumsden
Trophies:
Murray McLeay Trophy Tayla Lumsden
Bunty Hewitt Trophy Wally Kopae
Martin Verbeek Trophy Craig Sadlier
LK Wilson Trophy Joshua Haggerty
Great to see a good turnout at the Kew Bowling Club for the race presentation. Thanks to Eugene Bonthuys, Waine Harding, Lindsay Jones and Danielle Ralph for their assistance with Saturday’s race.
Bruce Ross - Manager
Curtis Dunn Memorial Race Results:
Div 2: Mokotua-McQuarrie Street 16.5km
1 - Jade Cameron
2 - Hayley Paterson
3 - Marshall Erwood
4 - Oliver Barrie
Div 1: Gorge Road-McQuarrie Street 26.5km
1 - Josh Miller
2 - Hunter Gough
3 - Helena Rikiti
4 - Lachie Baird
Fastest Time:
1 - Mitchel Fitzsimons 42mins
2 - Navarh Brotherson 42 mins
Fastest Female:
1 - Helena Rikiti 43mins