Results and Reports for March 1Carnegie-Caulfield CriteriumMulgrave, Australia, February 29, 2000 Courtesy of Mark Chadwick
A return to good weather, 154 starters under sunny skies with a cooling sea breeze and mid-twenties temp. 31 A graders tonight, the trackies absent freshening up before Saturday’s Melbourne Madison. The Great Britain World’s Pursuit Team made their promised appearance and was in all the action. Despite having ridden a three-hour session over the Mount Dandenong Tourist road in the morning, plenty of 5km+ climbs at around 5%, it was the Brits who started the action early. Matt Illingworth, Bryan Steele, Paul Manning and Brad "Ginger" Wiggins joined Dan Moore (Amore et Vita), State road and crit champ Robert Tighello (Ashburton Cycles), Simon Gerrans (VIS), Qld ex-pat Ben Day (Merida), Michael Gill (Terry Hammond Cycles), Murray Fenwick and J Dam formed the decisive break, holding a half lap lead by the 30 minute mark. As the laps counted down the attacks started to come, the Brits intent on putting a man away. Tighello, who had trained two hours himself in the morning before spending the rest of the day working laying tiles, was attentive to all the moves. As the bell rang there were only six in it and rounding out of the last bend at 250m to go it was Tighello that launched the sprint into the breeze, riding away from Brad Wiggins with fellow Brits Matt Illingworth and Paul Manning trailing in third and fourth. After the race Tighello was typically composed, another day at the office for him. His view was that if he went with every move he had to get a result! Wiggins was very complementary about the standard of the racing and particularly the style "good, positive racing with little sitting on to speak of". He was impressed by the readiness of the locals to take them on and relishes the opportunity to meet them again next Sunday at Glenvale Crescent in Mulgrave. B grade was smaller than expected as well but the racing was plenty hard enough. Small groups went away and were reabsorbed throughout the race until, near the finish, Karl Wood took control of a group of four never to be caught. Veteran Wood, in heavy training for the Vet Nationals dragged away from Peter Gardiner to register his final win in B grade for the season. Matt Coulston took third ahead of Doug Reynolds. Olympic MTB squad selectee Dellys Franke (Merida) took all the men on in the sprint in C grade and beat them all ends up! After starting with the biggest field of the night at 61, the C graders rode "en bloc" appearing like a shoal of fish with sharks about! Only in the dying stages did Mick Halloran make the one solo attempt that lasted three laps before the bunch swallowed him up again. Franke took on the guys as the line approached and took the win by less than a wheel from Richard England, with Jason Lobascher third and Nick Gibson fourth. D grade was a steady affair, the attacks quickly neutralised by those intent on a sprint. Justin Dovaston, who rides off 250m+ on the track, showed his sprinting form to register a win ahead of over 70 star Bruce Cochrane, Mark Rogers and Mark Chadwick. The gallop was begun well before the final corner, some counted their blessings at surviving the final bend! An unlucky fifth place to another over 70 rider, Bill Dove, his arms weren’t long enough as it came to the throw. Results A GRADE 31 Starters 60 minutes + 3 laps 1 Robert Tighello (Ashburton Cycles) 2 Brad Wiggins (GB) 3 Matt Illingworth (GB) 4 Paul Manning (GB) B GRADE 35 Starters 60 minutes + 3 laps 1 Karl Wood 2 Peter Gardiner 3 Matt Coulston 4 Doug Reynolds C GRADE 61 Starters 35 minutes + 3 laps 1 Dellys Franke (Merida) 2 Richard England 3 Jason Lobascher 4 Nick Gibson D GRADE 27 Starters 30 minutes + 3 laps 1 Justin Dovaston 2 Bruce Cochrane 3 Mark Rogers 4 Mark Chadwick |
