Dubbo, ACT win NSW Team Sprint Championships
19Feb2021
Three teenagers from Dubbo have won the NSW Team Sprint Championship for Elite Men, while a composite team of Territorians have taken out the Elite Women’s title.
Elite Men
Riding as the self-named “Green Team”, the young trio of Dylan Eather (17), Danny Barber (17) and Kurt Eather (20) beat Canberra CC in the gold medal final by 0.25 seconds. Dubbo CC had found themselves behind after two laps, but endurance rider Kurt Eather overturned the deficit with an outstanding final lap.
“I wasn’t quite sure where we were on the track, but when Danny swung up, I just went as hard as I could, and luckily it was good enough to get the win,” Kurt Eather said.
Earlier in the day, Dubbo CC had qualified fastest despite Kurt Eather pulling his foot at the start, requiring a restart. They improved on their qualifying time to set the winning time in the final of 46.374.
It was a show of strength from the Central West powerhouse, which won the Australian club premiership in 2019 thanks in some part to multiple junior national championships from Barber and the Eather brothers.
“We’ve just been doing normal training for the endurance events. We just thought we’d have a go at the team sprint because we have three good riders in Dubbo,” Kurt Eather said. “We haven’t really done much training for it.
“We won’t do an event like this again until after Nationals; it’s mainly just endurance events from now on.”
Elite Women
In the Elite Women’s event, a composite ACT team of Felice Beitzel, Claudia Marcks (Canberra CC) and Lily Stratford (Vikings CC) won with a time of 54.034.
After riding the fastest qualifier of 53.843, the Canberrans made no mistake in the final, closing out a fast-finishing St George squad by 0.31 seconds.
“We haven’t been working on it [the team sprint] that much,” Beitzel said. “We played around with different gears and the timing of the exchange. It was good to get to do two races so we could practise twice.
“We’re satisfied to come here and take away the gold medal.”
The event gave the ACT team a good benchmark ahead of next month’s National Championships in Brisbane.
“In qualifying, I was in a smaller gear and I left Claudia behind, so it wasn’t very pretty,” Beitzel said. “So in the second race, I thought about it a bit more and tried to drag her up a bit.
“We can take that away and work on improving for Nationals, hopefully.”
A wide range of clubs won state titles in the other categories of the NSW Team Sprint Championships, including Hunter Valley Masters CC, Randwick Botany CC, Lidcombe Auburn CC and Central Coast CC.
Words and photos by Ryan Miu
Results
For full results, visit: http://liveresults.nsw.cycling.org.au/2021/2021TeamSprintTeamPursuit//program.html
Elite Women Team Sprint
1. Team ACT (Lily Stratford, Felice Beitzel, Claudia Marcks) 54.034
2. St George Women (Lizanne Fox, Selina Ho, Georgia Wiltshire) +0.31
Elite Men Team Sprint
1. Green Team (Dylan Eather, Danny Barber, Kurt Eather) 46.374
2. Canberra CC (Jamie Green, Mathew Mooney, Daniel Rickard) +0.25
3. Team Bankstown (Jamie Och, Daniel Samuel, Jonathan Och)
WMAS 135+ Team Sprint
1. Vikings SHOC 1:03.933
2. Vikings TEK +0.17
WMAS All Ages Team Sprint
1. HVM Stripers 55.370
JW15 Team Sprint
1. Awesome Foursome 1:04.692
MMAS 135+ Team Sprint
1. Randwick Botany CC 48.653
2. Illawarra CC +1.00
3. Central Coast CC
MMAS All Ages Team Sprint
1. Central Coast CC 50.015
2. All Torque +1.70
3. Bankstown Sports CC
JM15 Team Sprint
1. LACC Gold 56.888
2. Neo CC +2.62
3. Neo CC
JW17 Team Sprint
1. Central Coast Cyclones 53.447
2. Neo CC +4.35
JM17 Team Sprint
1. WRAS Gold 56.463
2. WRAS +0.06
