Category:

This Friday night at the track was the District Sprint Championships, and we the usual suspects, Garry, Pritpal and I, were there forming a 3-man Olympic Sprint team. This is a short, sharp event - standing start and after your turn at the front is complete, you pull off with your race finished, leaving the others to continue. In a longer form, this would be called an Italian pursuit with two teams of equal number chasing each other on the track, shedding one rider a lap until the anchor riders, usually the strongest, are left to battle things out.

We warmed up and eventually got ourselves together on the track for rime riding in formation. We were on aerobars, as in international competition, aero bars are permitted (we think). The warm-up was fun, but it was only when we stopped for the riders' meeting that we learned that aero bars were not permitted this evening. Boo hiss!

We entered the Masters 100-135 (summed ages) event and the senior event was off before our rides so we had a little time to kill and try to keep warm - not easy on a rapidly chilling night. Matt Martinez was keeping things moving quickly as there was also a match sprint competition to get done afterwards, so we were soon lining up for our start.

We got away well, staying in close formation all the way. Garry got on top of his gear first as he was on the smallest among us at 88". Not long afterwards, I got on top of my 90" and settled in for a nice tow round the remainder of the first lap. Our change was smooth, and I was working for all I was worth, and again, turns 3 and 4 seemed infinite, but not quite as infinite as on Wednesday. Time to pull up and launch Pritpal, and off he goes, hammering round on the final lap.

Our time was 1:15:56, almost 3 seconds faster than our time on Wednesday - a good improvement. This got us 4th in the event, and ironically, would have got us third in the senior event had we entered that, thanks to the anchor rider in one of the teams pulling his foot at the start and having to solo the whole event. Still, we were pleased with our time.

As I indicated, the rest of the evening was devoted to the Senior Sprint Championships, and I had no illusions about even attempting a flying 200m time to qualify into the final 9 for the tournament proper. Instead, I watch the racing from the stand, and was treated to some extremely fast riding and great racing from the likes of Daniel Holloway and Stephen Alfred. A fun evening.

Back to top