Hello and thanks for joining me for another edition of the Down Under Digest, your weekly round-up of all things Aussie and Kiwi cycling. In this week’s edition, we’ve got road, we’ve got MTB, we’ve got track – we’ve even got some magpie-related #content, which is always exciting.
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Alright, let’s get into it.
🌈 Sam Gaze is back at it 🌈
The Cross-Country MTB World Cup season got underway in Brazil last weekend and for New Zealand’s short-track world champion, Sam Gaze, the series started in perfect fashion. In humid conditions, the Kiwi came to the fore roughly halfway through the 20-minute effort, and was on the front for most of the final lap. He led the field into the final sprint and came away with an impressive victory – his first World Cup win since becoming world champ again in August year.
Gaze went on to finish seventh in the Cross-Country Olympic event on Sunday.
In other news from the Mairiporã World Cup last weekend, Australia’s Bec Henderson took silver in the women’s XCC race on Saturday, finishing seven seconds behind winner Evie Richards after a spirited fight back from fifth place. She took 19th in the XCO race the following day.
👑 Oceania road champions crowned 👑
As far as continental championships go, the “Oceanias” aren’t the biggest deal in the world of road cycling. In truth, the Aussie and Kiwi road nationals get stronger startlists than the Oceania Road Champs, largely because of the timing (virtually all of the best riders are in Europe at the moment). Still, for those that attended the Oceania champs in Brisbane this past weekend – and particularly to those who won – the meet was still a big deal.
Here’s how the top events went:
- Australia’s Ryan Cavanagh (Kinan) won the elite men’s road race ahead of Matt Greenwood (BridgeLane) and Kiwi Aaron Gate (Burgos-BH). BridgeLane took six of the top 10 places, including all three podium places in the U23 field (Greenwood, Jackson Medway, and Jack Ward).
- Aussie Katelyn Nicholson led in a BridgeLane 1-2-3 in the elite & U23 women’s race, soloing in ahead of Keely Bennett and Haylee Fuller. Bennett won the U23 title ahead of Fuller and Savannah Coupland.
- Aaron Gate (Burgos-BH) continued his great start to 2024, comfortably winning the elite men’s time trial ahead of Aussie duo Oli Stenning (Blackshaw Racing) and Ben Dyball (Victoire Hiroshima).
- Aussie Isabelle Carnes (ARA-Skip Capital) won the elite women’s ITT ahead of Nicholson and Maddison Taylor.
Also worth noting from Oceanias: 18-year-old Lauren Bates (ARA-Skip Capital) winning the U19 women’s road race solo by over a minute. You might recall that she won the U19 time trial and road race at Aussie Road Nats in January and that she’s about to start a racing block with the Australian National Team. One to put on your radar, if you haven’t already!
If you’d like a full wrap-up of all the Aussie medal winners at the Oceania Road Champs, AusCycling has you covered. Cycling New Zealand also has a wrap-up at its website.
Got a story tip? Something readers should know about? I’d love to hear from you! Please reach out via email.
😴 The earliest road race in the world? 😴
The Oceania Road Champs weren’t the only cycling event in Brisbane this past weekend: as part of the Brisbane Cycling Festival, the National Road Series (NRS) was also in town to race the one-day Tour de Brisbane.
In the women’s race – which started at 5:50am(!) – solo individual rider Isla Carr upstaged her bigger-name rivals, winning the bunch sprint after what AusCycling’s Josh Davies described as “a chaotic technical finish to the 81.3-kilometre race”. Jumping on the back of the BridgeLane train, Western Australian track racer Carr found her way to the front then held off the powerhouse team (and their sprinter Gina Ricardo) to take her first NRS victory. Ricardo was second and Sophie Edwards (ARA-Skip Capital) rounded out the podium.
In the elite men’s race (5:45am start!) CCACHE x Par Küp turned a strong team performance into victory for their man Graeme Frislie. Several breakaways led the race for a time, but all were ultimately reeled in before the decisive bunch sprint. Frislie positioned himself well coming into the technical finale and bested BridgeLane duo Zac Marriage and Jack Ward in the sprint.
In case you missed the news, this is the final year of Australia’s NRS in its current form. The series will be replaced by the Gerry Ryan-backed ProVelo Super League in 2025. For now though, the NRS continues on April 27-28 with the Grafton to Inverell, the fourth of seven stops on this year’s circuit.
🍁 A quiet one in Canada 🍁
The third and final round of the UCI Track Nations Cup was held in Milton, Canada over the weekend in what was a final hit-out before the Paris Olympics later this year. Earlier in the week Escape’s Kit Nicholson put together a breakdown of the event (and the MTB World Cup in Brazil), but if you feel like you haven’t heard much about how Aussies and Kiwis went, well, that’s with good reason.
AusCycling opted not to send a team to Canada which, at first glance, seems to be a slightly odd decision with the Olympics looming. I reached out to the governing body for an explanation, and here’s what a spokesperson said:
“Only points from the best two Nations Cups performances count towards Olympic qualification and we did Adelaide and Hong Kong. Participating in Milton would neither positively nor negatively affect our Olympic qualification. The strategy was to do the first two and only do Milton in case of contingency. This contingency wasn’t needed and hence athletes stayed at home to continue training.”
To me, it would seem like there’s value in another big international hit-out pre-Olympics. I’ve been assured that was factored in but, reading between the lines, it seems like AusCycling decided the (considerable) expense of sending a team to Canada wasn’t worth whatever racing benefits might have been achieved.
New Zealand, meanwhile, did have riders in Milton and one of them, Ellesse Andrews, had a great few days. Coming back from a shoulder injury she suffered at the Track Nations Cup in Adelaide in February, the 24-year-old took silver in the sprint, before going one better in the keirin, winning in the rainbow bands of world champ.
The Kiwi team for the Paris Olympics is due to be named late next month, and we’d expect similar for the Aussie line-up.
✂️ Snippets ✂️
- Aussie climbing domestique Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla) continues to impress when getting his own opportunities, taking second place on the opening stage of the Tour of the Alps (UCI 2.Pro). Harper got into the winning move of four riders on the final descent and was only beaten in the sprint by former world ITT champ Tobias Foss (Ineos Grenadiers). Also in the group was Harper’s fellow Aussie, Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).
- After a week in hospital following his horrible crash at Itzulia Basque Country, Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) is now back home in Andorra. The Queenslander is nursing several fractured vertebrae and still has a long recovery ahead of him. He was due to race the Giro d’Italia next month.
- Beloved Aussie super-domestique (and Escape member!) Lauretta Hanson has launched a new scholarship through Paradigm Shift Sports, the sports management agency she’s represented by (run by Nettie Edmondson). The Lauretta Hanson-PSS Quiet Achiever Scholarship is available to Victorian women aged 16-25 who currently compete in the U19, U23, or elite women’s categories. The winner will receive AU$3,000 to cover the costs of racing nationally or internationally (flights, equipment, insurance etc.), and will receive six, one-hour mentoring sessions with Hanson.
- Last week we reported that a Special General Meeting (SGM) had been called at Melbourne’s St. Kilda Cycling Club, in an attempt to oust the current committee. The motion to call that SGM has since been withdrawn following “discussions between the Committee and representatives of a number of members who were dissatisfied with the handling of a governance issue”, according to a statement from the club.
❤️ And finally … ❤️
A couple things for you to round out this week’s newsletter. First: this fun video from Aussie team CCACHE x Par Küp after Graeme Frislie took the overall lead in the men’s NRS with his win in Brisbane:
If this looks a little familiar that’ll be because Ineos Grenadiers did the same thing earlier in the week after Tom Pidcock won Amstel Gold Race. Or because it’s become something of a meme in the sports world, superimposing someone’s likeness onto a video of rapper Lil Yachty walking out on stage at the Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash concert back in 2021. Here’s the ‘original’ video, in case you’re curious.
And finally, I promised you some magpie-related content right at the top, and here it is: a new videogame in development from one-man Aussie production studio Monster Shop Games. Called Pie in the Sky, the game allows to play as an Aussie magpie “stealing hot chippies, taking a shit on pedestrians, and … knocking the blocks off pesky cyclists.”
It looks … fun? Maybe? I’m not quite sure. I might need to have a play once it’s released and report back.
Until next time …
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