Oceania Games - CCSydney, Australia, December 8-16, 1999 |
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Men U19 Sprint Women Ind. Pursuit Men U19 Ind. Pursuit Men Team Pursuit Women Sprint Men Oly. Sprint (Int) Track Day 2 - December 9, 1999Men U19 SprintQualifying 1 Mark Renshaw (Aus) 11.135 (64.69 km/h) 2 Dimitry Paul (NCal) 11.213 3 Kial Stewart (Aus) 11.360 4 Richard Bowker (NZ) 11.368 5 Darryn Harris (Aus) 11.427 6 Greg Ardell (NZ) 11.444 7 Stephen Rossendell (Aus) 11.675 Round 1 Mark Renshaw (Aus) 12.502 (57.60 km/h) beat Stephen Rossendell (Aus) Dimitry Paul (NCal) 11.642 (61.86 km/h) beat Greg Ardell (NZ) Darryn Harris (Aus) 11.797 (61.07 km/h) beat Richard Bowker (NZ) Kial Stewart (Aus) Round 1 repechage Kial Stewart (Aus) 11.697 (61.59 km/h) beat Stephen Rossendell (Aus) Richard Bowker (NZ) 11.486 (62.72 km/h) beat Greg Ardell (NZ) Repechage final Richard Bowker (NZ) 11.502 (62.61 km/h) beat Kial Stewart (Aus) Semi finals Mark Renshaw (Aus) 11.563, 11.530 beat Richard Bowker (NZ) Dimitry Paul (NCal) 11.643, 11.829 beat Darryn Harris (Aus) Finals 1 Dimitry Paul (NCal) Releg., 11.667 beat 2 Mark Renshaw (Aus) 3 Darryn Harris (Aus) 11.622, 11.605 beat 4 Richard Bowker (NZ)Women 3000m Individual Pursuit The highlight of the women's individual pursuit today was, unfortunately, the absence of one of the top billings, Australian Lucy Tyler Sharman. Tyler-Sharman had decided to remain at home in Perth and was not motivated enough to come for the Games, preferring to train in relative quiet, 3000 kms away. There was no real pressure on her to compete here, with no extra Olympic spots up for grabs, and it was not an important selection race. She is still unsure as to her plans next year, and is taking some time out to make her decision. At a press conference held during the day, Australian Cycling head, Ray Godkin expressed disappointment that Tyler-Sharman was not competing: "Like myself a lot of people were looking forward to seeing her perform on this new track - especially as everybody expects she will have a big future here next year. And, had we known earlier, we would have been able to replace her in the competition." He did not believe she would face disciplinary action as a result however, and would not hold it against her in terms of her future selection. "The selection criteria will be announced shortly, probably within a week, so her withdrawal here will not effect her selection," he said. The event itself was an all-Australian/New Zealand affair, with New Zealand taking the honours. Kiwi Annalisa Farrell qualified fastest with 3.44.909, some three seconds quicker than the best Australian, Kate Bates. Two more Aussies, Toireasa Ryan and Sandra Smith qualified in the next two spots, however none of them were strong enough to come close to Farrell in the semis, or the final. It was Bates v Farrell in the final, and Bates actually started marginally quicker, but was behind after the first km, and struggled from there. Farrell did not have to pull out a blindingly fast time to defeat Bates, and finished over 1.5 seconds slower than her qualifying time of 3.44.909, but with a comfortable four second margin over Bates. In the rideoff for the bronze, Sandra Smith fairly easily overcame Toireasa Ryan. Qualifying 1 Annalisa Farrell (NZ) 3.44.909 (48.02 km/h) 2 Kate Bates (Aus) 3.48.039 3 Toireasa Ryan (Aus) 3.54.079 4 Sandra Smith (Aus) 3.54.836 5 Marina Duvnjak (NZ) 3.56.167 Lucy Tyler-Sharman (Aus) DNS Semi Finals Kate Bates (Aus) 3.49.137 (47.13 km/h) beat Toireasa Ryan (Aus) 3.56.317 Annalisa Farrell (NZ) 3.48.626 (47.24 km/h) beat Sandra Smith (Aus) 3.53.588 Finals Annalisa Farrell (NZ) 3.46.571 (47.67 km/h) beat Kate Bates (Aus) 3.50.626 Sandra Smith (Aus) 3.55.009 (45.96 km/h) beat Toireasa Ryan (Aus) 3.56.986Men U19 3000m Individual Pursuit Qualifying 1 Andrew Mason (Aus) 3.24.955 (52.70 km/h) 2 Hayden Roulston (NZ) 3.28.358 3 Joel Leonard (Aus) 3.32.642 4 Jonathan Davis (Aus) 3.34.535 5 Marc Ryan (NZ) 3.36.908 6 Jason Allen (NZ) 3.36.941 7 Rory Sutherland (Aus) 3.37.194 8 Yohan Honore (NCal) 3.40.789 Semi finals Hayden Roulston (NZ) 3.29.569 (51.54 km/h) beat Joel Leonard (Aus) 3.34.808 Andrew Mason (Aus) 3.29.989 (51.43 km/h) beat Jonathan Davis (Aus) 3.35.436 Final To be held on day 3Men 4000m Team Pursuit Although the men's team pursuit only had three teams, there were still several reasons to perform, especially from an Australian point of view. Brad McGee was keen to get under the Australian Olympic qualifying time of 4.10, although he admitted it would be hard, seeing as they had done virtually no training together. Australia easily qualified fastest in 4.14.436, smashing the two year old Oceania record by 8 seconds. However, they would have to do a lot better than this in the final against New Zealand if they were to achieve the Olympic qualifying time. They substituted Nigel Grigg for Luke Roberts in the final and went out on a 4.07 schedule. However, early pace setter Graeme Brown blew at the 2.5 km mark, a couple of laps before the team caught the Kiwis. After they passed them, their third rider Nigel Grigg started suffering and was tailed off. Grigg was then passed by the Kiwis, who by rights should have slowed when Australia caught them. With McGee towing Dawson to the finish, and Grigg desperately chasing behind the Kiwis, the Aussie team's hopes of a good time turned into a shambles, although they did record a 4.14.080, marginally quicker than their qualifying, with Grigg probably losing 2.5 seconds. Afterwards, McGee was initially extremely disappointed - with both his team, and the Kiwis for not obeying the rules. However, he calmed down and was philosophical about the ride: "I look back now, and I'm happy with the way we went. I mean it's December - what happens in December?" he said. "It's my first team pursuit since the Commonwealth Games in '98 and we haven't done much training together, so yeah it's ok. But, we were on a 4.07 schedule, and it would have been really good to get under 4.10, but you've got to get three [team members] across the line." "I didn't realise Grigg had been dropped at first. By rights, the Kiwis should have thrown the handbrake on as soon as we caught them, and I let them know afterwards," he said giving them a full character reference, free of charge. For Grigg's part, he wasn't surprised, having done only two weeks training. "I was dropped before New Zealand overtook us, with three and a half [laps] to go. I just don't have the legs at the moment," he said. Qualifying 1 Australia 4.14.436 (56.60 km/h) (Brown, Roberts, Dawson, McGee) 2 New Zealand 4.19.839 (Chapman, Cheatley, Melrose, Randall) 3 New Caledonia 4.27.734 (Goyetche, Michel-Villaz, Tejada, Pierron) Final 1 Australia 4.14.080 (56.68 km/h) (Brown, Grigg, Dawson, McGee) 2 New Zealand caught (Chapman, Cheatley, Melrose, Randall)Women's Sprint The Women's sprint competition started today with the flying 200 m qualifying event. Fastest was Canada's Tanya Dubnicoff, with a time of 11.578 seconds, over two tenths of a second quicker than Australian Lyndelle Higginson and the USA's Tanya Lindenmuth. Michelle Ferris of Australia just missed out on third qualifying by one hundredth of a second. Also, yesterday's 500m time trial winner, Cuihua Jiang showed her tiredness, only recording 12.015 seconds for seventh spot. Dubnicoff was very happy with her ride, classing it as "excellent - I did a very fast time for this time of year, considering back home in Canada we came from minus 15 degrees." Second placed Higginson was equally happy, considering she rode a personal best, and breaking the Oceania record. "It's great. I didn't know what the record was [she wasn't the only one!] until they said that Kerrie Meares (Aus) broke it, so I thought I had a chance," she said on her performance. USA's Lindenmuth was another "surprise", as she rode the same time as at her Nationals in August, and had had two weeks off the bike prior to the games. Finally, Ferris said that she can improve in the final: "All year I have been qualifying fourth and fifth and coming up for the final." The sprint competition will continue over the next two days, finishing on Saturday evening. Qualifying 1 Tanya Dubnicoff (Canada) 11.578 (62.23 km/h) 2 Lyndelle Higginson (Aus) 11.812 3 Tanya Lindenmuth (USA) 11.855 4 Michelle Ferris (Aus) 11.856 5 Magali Faure-Humbert (Fra) 11.867 6 Elisabeth Williams (NZ) 11.973 7 Cuihua Jiang (Chn) 12.015 8 Joanne Kiesanowski (NZ) 12.045 9 Kerrie Meares (Aus) 12.060 10 Rosealee Hubbard (Aus) 12.091 11 Rahna Demarte (Aus) 12.099 12 Becky Quinn (USA) 13.081Men Olympic Sprint International The men's international Olympic sprint was once again a showcase of French talent, although the Australians pushed them hard. After qualifying fastest, the French team of Herve Gane (Laurent's brother), Vincent Le Quellec, and Arnaud Tournant then set an Australian record of 45.575 seconds in the second round. Note: Australian records are those set by anyone on Australian soil. The ride off for the gold was between Australia 2 (Danny Day, Sean Eadie, and Shane Kelly, but without a winged keel) and the French. Australia started slower, but came back on the second lap to be ahead with one to go. However, the awesome power of Tournant was too much for anchor-man Kelly, and he led the French team home in a time of 45.725 seconds, slightly slower than their second round record. Although Tournant had an icepack on after the race for an injured ligament (one and a half years ago), he didn't believe it would hinder his performance for the rest of the week. He will be aiming for three gold medals in the Games, with the sprint to come. Qualifying 1 France (H. Gane, Le Quellec, Tournant) 45.725 (59.06 km/h) 2 Australia 2 (Day, Eadie, Kelly) 46.205 3 Australia 1 (Hutchinson, Neiwand, Selin) 46.459 4 Poland (Krejner, Mientki, Saczuk) 46.577 5 New Zealand (Lee, Sinton, Peden) 47.729 6 Italy (Gentille, Mei, Vecchi) 47.986 7 New Caledonia (Haas, Schneider, Tejada) 48.661 8 Slovakia (Bazalik, Jerabek, Lepka) 48.947 9 USA (Carney, Hopkins, Tillman) 49.421 10 China (Cheng, Yang, Li) 50.255 Round 2 1 Poland (Krejner, Mientki, Saczuk) 46.332 (58.28 km/h) beat 2 New Zealand (Lee, Sinton, Peden) 47.104 1 Australia 1 (Hutchinson, Neiwand, Selin) 46.324 (58.29 km/h) beat 2 Italy (Gentille, Mei, Vecchi) 48.151 1 Australia 2 (Day, Eadie, Kelly) 46.221 (58.42 km/h) beat 2 New Caledonia (Haas, Schneider, Tejada) 48.754 1 France (H. Gane, Le Quellec, Tournant) 45.575 (59.25 km/h) beat 2 Slovakia (Bazalik, Jerabek, Lepka) 49.254 Final 1 France (H. Gane, Le Quellec, Tournant) 45.677 (59.12 km/h) beat 2 Australia 2 (Day, Eadie, Kelly) 46.055 3 Australia 1 (Hutchinson, Neiwand, Selin) 46.297 (58.33 km/h) beat 4 Poland (Krejner, Mientki, Saczuk) 46.374 |