Australian Record for Sunderland
AIS-WAIS sprint cyclist Scott Sunderland came away with an Australian record and silver medal from the team sprint at the UCI Track World Cup in Astana, Kazakhstan over the weekend.
In the three lap event, the Jayco-AIS trio of Shane Perkins, Scott Sunderland and Matthew Glaetzer set an Australian record in qualifying. Their time of 43.589 eclipsed the previous mark of 43.772 set at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi by Sunderland, Daniel Ellis and Jason Niblett.
In the gold medal ride they crossed the line in a time of 43.661 to claim silver behind Germany’s Team Erdgas.2012 (Robert Forstemann, Max Levy and Joachim Eilers) who won the race in 43.474. France (43.757) defeated Germany (43.835) for the bronze medal.
Riding together for the first time at international level, the trio understandably came in for praise from Cycling Australia High Performance General Manager Paul Brosnan.
“This was a brand new combination who have never raced together before,” Brosnan said. “Scott has never ridden second wheel and it’s been five years I reckon since Shane has done a standing lap in competition. Matt is the 2010 junior world champion in sprint and keirin and he’s come in and clocked the fastest last lap of anyone in the event.”
WAIS-AIS scholarship holder Sarah Kent competed in the women’s team pursuit in Astana, marginally missing out on a ride in the medal rounds. The trio of 2010 team pursuit world champions Kent and Ashlee Ankudinoff and two time Olympian Kate Bates was fifth fastest and only 17 hundredths of a second (0.17) outside the qualifying mark.
Three time world champion duo Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch came within a whisker of breaking their own world record to win gold in the team sprint while our men claimed two silver medals at the first round of the UCI Track World Cup Series in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The pair posted a time of 32.938 seconds for the two lap event and were the only team to ride under 33 seconds. Their time was a mere 0.015 or 15-thousandths of a second off the world record they rode to win the 2010 world title in Copenhagen.
“I feel extremely happy,” said Meares. “This is the first world cup of the season and this has come out of the really hard pre-season race training we’ve done. We were so close to a world record, it’s really exciting at this point in the season.”
The Australians were almost four tenths of a second faster than Olena Tsos and Lyubov Shulika (33.313) from the Ukraine. Germany (33.388) defeated Great Britain (33.588) for third place.
This world cup round was the first international event to be raced on the newly constructed Astana velodrome which has capacity for 15,000 spectators.
“I have never sees a stadium as magnificent as this, and it’s great to see so many people here, enjoying our sport,” said Meares. “This is our first time here, and I’m absolutely loving it.”
-CyclingAustralia