Date: Saturday, 15 March 2014
Posted by: Cycling Southland

Hi guys!
Lots of news for today – the weather bomb has hit (although we would be celebrating how warm it is, if this was in Southland – everyone is still in shorts and t-shirts, despite the wind and rain!).

More importantly, we had an absolutely awesome morning of racing today and we are looking forward to another great night tonight ... although there are definitely some weary bodies about the place after a couple of very late nights and big days (and for some riders, a very big season!), but we have a bit of a gap between sessions today, so it is nice to get home and re-charge the batteries for a few hours before heading back to the bright lights of the track.

Anyway, to the business at hand.....I guess most people have caught up on last night’s results (amongst many amazing performances, the highlights were the 1-2 in the Women’s Sprint (you couldn’t choose who to cheer for in the final, so we just yelled out “Go Girls!” , and Sophie’s awesome win in the Elite Women’s Points Race – of course along with Eddie and Mikey’s Silvers!), so I will quickly touch on this morning’s session and try and keep the facebook page updated as the night goes along.....

So, first up this morning saw Jake the Mus and Mikey in the U19 Men’s Sprint Qualifying – both riding really well, with Mikey SMOKING it to qualify fastest with a 10.7 – then straight through his ¼’s and into tonight’s semi-final. Sweet deal!

Then we had Keirin rounds for the Elite Women and Men – Steph and Tarsh sailed through their heats and straight into the Final, and the highlight of the morning was getting all six of our Elite Men sprinters into the Semi Final of the Keirin. Matt, Eddie, Ben and Jem got straight through from their heat, and Karl and Fabian won their repecharges. Was really awesome and I am looking forward to seeing them all up tonight (hopefully they aren’t all in the same semi!)

After all the sprint ¼ finals, and 5-8th rides, and Keirin repecharges, it was finally time for the U19 Women Point’s Race heats. Laura sailed through her heat well, Bronwyn just missed out, and Makayla had a bumpier ride, coming down in a hard crash...... although in an awesome display of gutsiness, she jumped straight back up and back in the bunch, winning the penultimate sprint and sailing into the final. She was patched up afterwards and is amped and looking forward to tonight. Good work Mak! Trish and I just wish we had brought sewing equipment with us to patch up all the holes in skinsuits from the various crashes!

So, tonight we have Elite Keirin Semis and Finals, U19 Sprint Semis and Finals, U19 Point’s races for Men and Women and the Elite Men, and the Scratch Race for the Elite Women. All go!! 

I’ll sign off here and let you keep up to date with the live feeds and on facebook.
Enjoy the racing and keep cheering for our crew – we are loving it!! Before I go, here is the latest on the Point’s Shield: Southland 113, WCNI 55, Auckland 45, Mid South 21, WBOP 11, Otago 10, Tasman 7, Northland 1, Wellington 1.

Report kindly supplied by mega manager Dale MacDonald!

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