Triple Treat for Tomic

WAIS cyclist Josie Tomic extended her golden week at the Track National Championships in Sydney by winning a third title alongside WAIS teammates Mel Hoskins and Bella King in the women’s team pursuit.

On the men’s side, WAIS-AIS athlete Luke Durbridge claimed gold in the points race, capturing his first elite senior track national title.

The West Australian pursuit trio won the race when they overtook their Tasmanian opponents, Amy Cure, Emma Lawson and Georgia Baker three laps from the finish but powered on to complete the 12 laps and clip three tenths of a second of the 3:21.748 set by Tomic, Sarah Kent (WA) and Ashlee Ankudinoff (NSW) to win the World Championship in Denmark last year.

Hoskins led the team from the gate and by the end of the first kilometre they were three seconds up on Tasmania. By the second kilometre, they had doubled their lead and sensing victory, rode around their rivals.

“I was a bit surprised as I actually had no idea what time we were during,” said Tomic. “But I was spinning a lot from the first lap so figured we must have been going pretty fast and it was going to be a fast time.”

Ironically King stepped in to replace Kent who withdrew from the championships due to illness but the depth of the West Australia team was on display as they stormed home to claim their fourth straight teams pursuit title.

“We have clearly a pretty strong crop of young girls coming through WA at the moment,” explained Tomic, “We lose Sarah, but we gain another junior world champion in this event, so we need to give Darryl Benson (WAIS cycling coach) a lot of credit for all the work he has been doing with us in juniors and it is all starting to pay off now in the seniors.”

King, the 2010 junior teams pursuit world champion, was ecstatic after claiming a gold medal in her first year out of the junior ranks and just three weeks after being injured when she was hit by a car during a training ride in Perth.

“It is a pretty special moment for me and the whole team, as for a state team to be that quick is fantastic,” said King, who added to the omnium silver and points race bronze medals she claimed earlier in the week. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet, and I think that if I had known we were that close to the world record, I worry now that I could have done more.”

South Australia’s Annette Edmondson, Carly Light and Letitia Custance recovered from a slow start to win the bronze medal in a time of 3:31.593, defeating the all under 19 Queensland team of Taylah Jennings, Alexandra O’Dea and Emily Roper who broke the under 19 All-Comers and Australian Championship record with their time of 3:32.310.

One of the most exciting races of the day came in the form of the 40km men’s points race that hung on a knife’s edge until very last metre of the 160 lap distance when Luke Durbridge (WA) claimed his first individual elite title by mere millimetres ahead of South Australian Glenn O’Shea.

“It is a fantastic feeling to get the win on the last event of the week,” said Durbridge. “This is only the second bunch race I’ve ever won so I’m stoked.”

Durbridge went into the final sprint with a narrow three point margin over O’Shea and to win the crown had to finish ahead of his rival. The pair called on every last reserve of energy for one last gasp effort with ‘turbo Durbo’ as he’s become known, clinching five points and the win.

Durbridge finished with a total of 66 points against O’Shea’s 62 points while Michael Hepburn (QLD) was third with 52 points.

“I think I ended up winning the last sprint by .006 so that’s how close it was but full credit to Glenn O’Shea and Michael Hepburn but I’m really glad to come out on top today,” said Durbridge, 19. “Points races are just generally going to be a brutal affair, they’re so aggressive and so fast. Plus the calibre of riders that we’ve got in Australia at the moment means that it’s always going to be a hard race.”

The race was a frantic one with Hepburn the first to lap the field before Durbridge and O’Shea did the same. They duelling duo did it again soon after but Hepburn stayed in the medal hunt when he attacked with three others to pick up his second lap bonus.

“You always need to be prepared and it’s always the guys who can just save that extra little bit in the first half that are going to win,” explained Durbridge. “And I’ve learnt that today, normally I go a bit too hard too early, but I saved my legs early on and I came out on top which is just a fantastic feeling.

“I had a lot of help from my teammates Steve Hall and Michael Freiberg (WAIS) and I don’t think I could have done it without them and I am so glad I could get the result for me and also for them as well,” said Durbridge.

In the under 19 men’s sprint, Victorians Jaron Gardiner, Luke Parker and Jacob Schmid smashed the Australian Championship and All-Comers record on their way to winning gold. West Australians Jack Ward and fellow WAIS athletes Luke Zaccaria and Mitchell Benson (48.178) defeated South Australia’s Edward Coad, Ben Fergusson and Robert Jon McCarthy (49.185) for the bronze medal.

In the women’s keirin Anna Meares went in as favourite and didn’t disappoint grabbing the gold medal with an impressive surge of power down the back straight in the final lap.

Sitting behind Sydney’s Kaarle McCulloch and WAIS athlete Holly Williams as the derny left the track, Meares then found herself trapped in fifth wheel with a lap and a half remaining. But at the bell, Meares used her experience to manoeuvre through a gap after Apryl Eppinger (PHI) and Stephanie Morton (SA) clipped wheels.

Morton recovered to take the silver medal just ahead of a fast finishing Williams who crossed in third place.

“I got there in the end but I was starting to really panic at one stage,” said Meares after collecting her fourth Australian keirin crown, “I got myself caught underneath Holly’s wheel and to go from fifth wheel that’s not opportune at any time in the keirin.

“So I used the banking as much as I could coming into the bell and I knew I just had to flat foot it and give it everything I could.”

– Cycling Australia