WAIS Stars Help WA to Southcott Cup
Cameron Meyer, Travis Meyer, Luke Durbridge and Michael Freiberg with the Southcott Cup (Cycling Australia)
Western Australian Institute of Sport cyclists have continued to reap rich rewards from the 2009 National Track Championships – with an all WAIS team setting a new Australian record in the team pursuit in Adelaide yesterday.
Cameron Meyer (Helena Valley), Travis Meyer (Helena Valley), Michael Freiberg (Dianella) and Luke Durbridge (Bassendean) sliced four seconds off the old mark setting a new time of 4:04.809min in their gold medal ride against the Victorian team of Leigh Howard, Glenn O’Shea, James Lanedyk and Sean Finning for the Southcott Cup.
Victoria set the early pace but the Western Australian team would always be hard to stop in the closing stages with an Olympian and several junior world champions to call on.
The result sparked memories of 2006 when Cameron Meyer was a member of the WA U19 squad which also set a new national record in the team pursuit with victory over Victoria.
“It’s a bit of déj√† vu of under nineteens in 2006 when WA beat Victoria and we set the U19 Championships record,” said Cameron Meyer who last year made his Olympic debut and finished fourth in the points race. “We knew we had it in us although Victoria had three very strong guys so we switched our order around and we knew that if we were up on them at the three kilometre mark that we would come home stronger than them and it all went to plan.
“It is just unbelievable,” said Meyer. “This win means so much for us and so much for WA as it’s the first win for us in the (open) men’s team pursuit.”
Travis Meyer admitted the team had targeted the record as a benchmark but was as surprised as anyone else at the final time.
“We thought if we could go the 4.08, 4.07 (race time), we would be happy, but we were on a really fast time and just went with it and kept it up,” said Travis Meyer. “It is just amazing.”
For Glenn O’Shea and his Victorian teammates it was disappointing to miss out on back to back national titles.
“We are the same team that won last year, but we gave it our all and did a good time, a little disappointed, but 4.07 for a state team is not bad,” said O’Shea who next week heads to Copenhagen with Team Toshiba for the final round of the 2008-09 UCI Track World Cup Series. “To come up against them (WA) is a bit hard, I mean they have multiple junior world champions, Australian representatives and an Olympian.”
Fellow WAIS rider Holly Williams (Inglewood) produced a fine effort in the women’s U19 sprint qualifying for the bronze medal race, before being narrowly pipped by Tasmania’s Sarah Cure. On day two of competition, Melissa Hoskins (Lesmurdie) claimed a bronze medal in the U19 women’s points race.
WAIS IASP athlete Claire Mclean (Carlisle) enjoyed a dominate performance in winning gold in the lc1 pursuit.