Australian Youth Olympics Festival

Sydney, January 18-21, 2007

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Day 2 - January 19

Dunc Gray Velodrome, Sydney

Australian youngsters dominate on day two

More Australian Youth Olympic Festival best times were set among the six gold medals after the second day of the cycling programme at Dunc Gray Velodrome on Friday. Under the roof in warm conditions Australian cyclists won four gold medals while Japan and New Zealand won one apiece.

Western Australia's Josephine Butler won the first gold medal of the day after she lowered the AYOF best time for the women's 500metres time trial to 36.380sec. Butler rode the fastest first lap in 20.465sec, which had the crowd roaring her on as she kept to the black line for a winning margin of 0.418sec. "Oh, I am really stoked. I really wanted the gold. When I heard that she (Huang) did 36.8 I was a bit worried knowing I had to beat it. I just went out and tried my hardest," the 17-year-old said.

Chinese Taipei's Huang Ting Ying had broken Anna Meares' Festival best time over the two laps, lowering the mark to 36.789sec from 37.151sec, but it was only good enough for second. "It is my personal best time, it was previously 37.2. I could have gone faster but because of my delayed start where I jumped the gun as I was nervous, it was not as good as it could have been," Huang said.

South Australia's Annette Edmondson was under Meares' time with her 37.471sec yet this won her the bronze medal.

New Zealand's Eddie Dawkins led after every lap to win the men's 1kilometre time trial in a new best festival time, 1min 5.427sec. He improved on Australian Scott Sunderland's best Festival time set at the 2005 edition by 0.427 seconds. "It was really hard in the first lap," said Dawkins, "I went out as hard as I could go into the first bend, I then just dug myself into a hole and my legs blew up luckily with only half a lap to go."

New South Welshmen Richard Lang and Luke Davison were separated by two one-thousandths of a second between the silver and bronze medals, 1min 7.311sec to 1min 7.313 sec. This was Lang's second silver medal of the AYOF after his second placing to another New Zealander, Jason Christie, in the men's 3km individual pursuit on Thursday. "It was way harder then the pursuit and I went in not knowing what to expect," Lang said. His tactics were to "just get in there, put on the evil look, head down, bum up and away you go."

"1:07.03 is my best time ever. I did 1:11 at the national championship last year."

Annette Edmondson surprised the form book in the women's sprint after beating the top two ranked riders on the South Australian's way to winning the gold medal. Edmondson won the first final before Chinese Taipei's Huang Ting Ying accelerated with a lap left in the second final to even the ledger. In the third and deciding race Edmondson took the sprinter's lane, ensuring Huang had to come over the top but which she could not. "I was so nervous I definitely wasn't expecting to be top five. I was hoping to be top 10, this is really crazy," said the 15-year-old from Adelaide.

Huang, 16, who set a new best AYOF time for the flying 200 sprint in qualification on Thursday, won her third silver medal at these championships after her second placings in the women's 2km individual pursuit and the 500metres time trial.

In the semifinal Edmondson showed her track cunning where she caught the older Butler napping in both heats to take a two-bike length into the back straight and hold off the faster Butler.

Butler won her second medal of the day when she swept Malaysia's Mustafa Fatehah 2-0 in the bronze medal ride-off.

Japan's Tomohiro Fukaya won the men's sprint after illness forced Queensland's Byron Davis to withdrew when it was 1-1 in the final.

After Davis won the first final, Fukaya tried twice to pass but only drew beside Davis for he held the sprinter's lane before the Japanese rider had one last lunge at the finish line. The photo gave the race to Fukaya by one millimetre, which Davis at this stage had collapsed on the side of the track. "Although he (Byron Davis) could not go on, I am glad to win," said Fukaya.

Fukaya joined his countyman Tsubasa Kitasura as gold medallist in this event after Kitasura won in 2003. "Coming into this event I have kept my condition. This is my first overseas competition," the 16-year-old said.

New Zealand's Dawkins won his second medal on Friday after defeating South Australia's Mark Glowacki 2-0 for third place in the men's sprint.

Western Australia's Josephine Tomic won her second gold medal at this AYOF after she treated the last two laps of the women's 7.5km scratch race final as an individual pursuit to cross the line ahead of Queensland's Courtney Le Lay and Victoria's Lisa Friend. Tomic, 17, won the women's 2km individual pursuit on Thursday night. "It was annoying me how everyone was just following me and wouldn't do anything, but it was alright, everything turned out fine," Tomic said.

Friend's bronze medal was just reward for she was the most aggressive rider in the 30-lap final.

Victoria's Peter Johnstone won gold in an action filled men's 10km scratch final although he wasn't the first to cross the line.

Results

Women's 500m time trial

1 Josephine Butler (WA)                         36.380
2 Ting Ying Huang (Tpe)                         36.798
3 Annette Edmondson (SA)                        37.471
4 Szu Ping Lin (Tpe)                            37.592
5 Mustafa Fatehah (Mas)                         38.026
6 Sinead Cosgrove (NSW)                         38.631
7 Samsiah Rice (WA)                             38.763
8 Chloe Hosking (ACT)                           39.054
9 Courtney Le Lay (Qld)                         39.630
10 Yoshiko Kondo (Jpn)                          39.838
11 Bo Jiang (Chn)                               39.881
12 Sequoia Cooper (NZl)                         40.713
13 Cathy Jordan (NZl)                           40.809
14 Hayley Grant (Qld)                           41.021
15 Netasha Pearse (NSW)                         41.392

Men's 1000m time trial

1 Richard Lang (NSW)                          1:07.311
2 Luke Davison (NSW)                          1:07.313
3 Stephen Hall (WA)                           1:07.679
4 Thomas Robinson (Tas)                       1:08.042
5 Shane Archbold (NZl)                        1:08.463
6 Peter Lewis (NSW)                           1:08.478
7 Shih Hsin Hsiao (Tpe)                       1:08.673
8 Sam Steele (NZl)                            1:08.732
9 Matthew Meisel-Dennis (ACT)                 1:09.075
10 Daisuke Nagashima (Jpn)                    1:09.100
11 Nick Ferguson (SA)                         1:09.567
12 Kazuki Yamashita (Jpn)                     1:09.694
13 Michael Matthews (ACT)                     1:10.360
14 Mat Amin Mohd Shahrul (Mas)                1:10.673
15 Mustarudin Muhammad Zamani (Mas)           1:11.179
16 Cameron Bayly (SA)                         1:12.030
17 Huaxu Zhao (Chn)                           1:14.300
DNS Jason Holloway (WA)
DNS Liam Hodge (NT)
DNS Chien Ting Pan (Tpe)

Men's sprint final

For gold & silver

1 Tomohiro Fukaya (Jpn)
2 Byron Davis (Qld)

For bronze

3 Eddie Dawkins (NZl)
4 Mark Glowacki (SA)

Women's sprint final

For gold & silver

1 Annette Edmondson (SA)
2 Ting Ying HUANG (Tpe)

For bronze

3 Josephine Butler (WA)
4 Mustafa Fatehah (Mas)