Thrilling start to New Year Carnival

Cycling Southland's New Year track cycling carnival featured thrills and spills on its opening night at Stadium Southland Velodrome tonight.

Riders across all grades fought fiercely throughout the programme, putting on a great show for the crowd and testing themselves in the lead in to Track Nationals.

The night opened with the Under 13 Derby won by Josh Miller over Lucy Dawkes and Emily Paterson. The Under 15 Derby Heats saw Christine Lambley, Chloe Jenkins, Kain Bowles, Samuel Miller, Corbin Strong and Mitchell Morris all qualify for the final while Eden Ronald impressed in winning the U17 Girls Points race over Makayla Smith and Ellie Cowan.

Jack Ford claimed another win for visiting riders in the Under 17 Boys Points race, finishing strongly to claim the final sprint to sew up the win ahead of Lachlan McGregor and Tom Sexton.

Tess Jenkins took out the Div 1 Women Mystery Preme Scratch Race, beating home Erin Criglington and preme winner Nicola Stevens. Impressive Mid South Canterbury youngster Brendan Whalley took out the Div 2 Men Scratch from Tim Maynard and Troy Boniface with Nathan Adams claiming the preme. Whalley's fellow MSC rider Craig Domigan dominated the Div 1 Men category, starting with victory in their Scratch Race in front of Mike White and Andrew Ward (with Ant Leathart taking out the preme sprint).

The Invitational Keirins produced two great races. Steph McKenzie controlled the women's race, taking the derney's wheel and then holding off Natasha Hansen down the final straight after fellow NZ squad member Katie Schofield took a tumble on the final turn. Tom Beadle continued his strong form in this event with another comfortable victory ahead of Matt Dodds and Lee Evans.

The Elite Women's Points Race was taken out by West Coast North island's Gemma Dudley who claimed the final sprint to confirm a five point win over Aimee Burns and Kirstie James while Shane Archbold controlled the final stages of the Elite Men's race to take the win in front of Brad Evans with josh Haggerty claiming the last sprint to jump into third.

Meanwhile, Kain Bowles showed another clean set of heels to take out the Under 15 Derby final from Corbin Strong and Mitchell Morris.

The Wheel Race Qualifiers saw positions decided for Saturday night's finals with Makayla Smith, Eden Ronald, Ellie Cowan, Lucy Timpany Aly Doherty and Sarah Ownsworth all winning their way into the U17 final to contest the OJ Henderson Trophy. They will be joined by the 10 boys qualifiers - Hayden Strong, Tom Sexton, Josh Carpenter, Lachlan McGregor, Jack Ford, Hamish Beadle, Rhys Jones, Brayden Stephens, Sam Buckner and Jake Milligan.

The battle for the Cycling Southland Wheel Race trophy in the Senior grades should also be a beauty. The final will be contested between Sophie McMurdo, Libby Bayne, Erin Criglington and Nicola Stevens (Div 1 Women), Brendan Whalley, Russell Ownsworth, Mark Day and Wayne McEwan (Div 2 Men), Craig Domigan, Mike White, Garry Smith and Andrew Ward (Div 1 Men), Natasha Hansen, Alysha Keith, Laura Heywood and Kirstie James (Elite Women) and Andy van der Heyden, Shane Archbold, Denay Cottam, Josh Haggerty, Matt Dodds, Cam Karwowski, Tom Beadle and Brad Evans (Elite Men).

Scratch races, eliminations and points races ended the night's programme.

Canterbury's Christine Lambley took out the U15 Girls/U13 six-lapper over Chloe Jenkins and Kate Ward while Kain Bowles completed another clean sweep in the U15 boys, but he was made to work for this one by Brayden Holland and Matthew Trenchard.

The U17 girls elimination featured a nasty spill with both Laura Moffat and Makayla Smith taking a tumble but both were later diagnosed with no breaks. Eden Ronald took the win over Allie Cowan and Lucy Timpany while Tom Sexton was able to coast to victory in the boys race after Jack Ford slipped his chain in the final sprint. Lachie McGregor placed third.

Tessa Jenkins took out the Div 1 Women Points race from Sophie McMurdo and a brave ride from Georgia Vessey got her into third, while Brendan Whalley ended his good night with a three point win in the Div 2 Men ahead of Russell Ownsworth and Tim Maynard. The Div 1 Men's race followed a similar script to earlier races with Craig Domigan taking a two point victory over Mike White with Andrew Lienert four points adrift in third. 

The final two events were the Elite scratch races. The Elite Women's race was staged over 20 laps with NZ sprint champion Natasha Hansen doing a spectacular job in positioning herself for the final drive to the line three laps from home and from there, noone was going around her outside. Gemma Dudley pushed her all the way, but ultimately Hansen was not to be denied with Dudley second and Jen Muhl taking another step forward in her injury comeback with an impressive third.

The Men's race predictably went the way of Olympian Shane Archbold who looked in control of the race over the 25 laps. Cam Karwowski made sure the finish camera was needed to decide the top 2, but had to settle for second with Mid South Canterbury U19 sprinter Daniel Rafferty doing a great job to hang in and take a deserving third in the final sprint.

Racing continues on Saturday night with the programme beginning at 7pm.

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