South Australia produced an extraordinary five days of racing at the 2024 AusCycling Track National Championships held in Brisbane.
SASI scholars and graduates had a lot to be excited about at the end of the competition, coming away with:
- 19 athletes won national titles
- 11 national titles
- 4 Australian championship records
- 2 Australian all comer records
- 5 South Australian records
DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS
Alli Anderson won the elite women’s scratch race national championship but was unaware of her first individual national title until given the message as she exited the track, leading to shock and excitement from the 20-year-old.
The Adelaidean finished with the bronze medal behind Ireland’s Lara Gillespie and Czech Republic’s Petra Sevcikova, with all three racing themselves into their own hunt for medals after attacking together and gaining a lap on a hesitant main bunch.
“Incredible. Oh my goodness, I didn’t realise I’d won so when I crossed the line, I was like ‘ah third, I’ll take it’, but when they told me on the stairs I went ‘you’re joking’,” Anderson said.
Tayte Ryan was a class above the rest of the junior men’s sprint field from qualifying, setting a 10.062 in his flying 200-metre, 0.482 seconds ahead of second-placed Queenslander Mitchell Louie.
From there, the junior 1000m time trial world champion strolled through the early rounds and always looked to be in control in the medal rounds, coming away with the gold.
"It’s all going to plan so far this year. I’m really happy with how I raced at Oceania. A lot of learnings to take away from it, like even though I did well there, there were still lots of things I can take away and learn and stuff, that I applied today. So, I was quite happy with how everything went today. I feel like I probably executed most things as well as I can, and I was really happy with it today,” Ryan said.
Rising star Wil Holmes smashed the junior men’s individual pursuit national record by five seconds in the opening session of the 2024 TrackNats en route to winning the first national title of the week in Brisbane.
The 18-year-old blew the doors off Cameron Rogers’ previous benchmark of 3:13.271 with a 3:08.181, a time one second outside of the world record time of 3:07.092.
“It was definitely the record (that was the bigger goal),” Holmes said.
“I said to myself that I would just go full gas in qualifying and see what happens because the national record is something I just wanted to have and try and hold on to for a few years.
“I wasn’t expecting to go quite that quick. I was hoping to do around a 3:10 or just under and I had the schedule set at 3:10.4 with my coach Brett (Aitken).
“But then I was up from the very first lap on the schedule and doing just over a 3:08, almost a 3:07 was something I was super happy with and I came into the final looking at only being 1.1 seconds off the world record in qualifying so I was going to try and have a go at it but I just didn’t quite have the legs in the end.”
DAY 2 HIGHLIGHTS
Tayte Ryan kept up his winning form on Day 2 of the TrackNats, claiming the national championship crown in the junior men’s keirin.
The 18-year-old confessed that even he was a bit surprised by the win.
“Well, I must admit, keirin is not my best race. I’m a bit clueless when it comes to it, but I'm lucky I had the legs to save me on that last lap there because I was quite a way back and lucky I was able to pull it back from there.
“The legs are feeling pretty good, feeling on pretty good form at the moment. So just hoping we can carry it on for the rest of the week.”
DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS
The elite women’s team pursuit quartet of Chloe Moran, Sophie Edwards, Alli Anderson and Summer Nordmeyer notched four national championships on the trot for South Australia.
“It's awesome being able to share it with other girls. My first individual jersey (on Day 1) was incredible. It still hasn't really sunk in, but being able to celebrate with the girls, you know, everyone's like, ‘oh, you did so good,’” Anderson said.
“You lift each other up, so I think it's really nice to be able to share that positivity and bring everyone up with you instead of just yourself.”
The junior women’s team pursuit title was taken out by South Australians Ava Wilson, Leani Van der Berg, Ava Schmidtke and Madeleine Wasserbaech, who not only won the event but broke the state record too!
“Over the moon. We've come third and then second. So, coming first now, it's really good. Just to step it up again this year is really great. Every year we've just stepped it up,” Van der Berg said.
“We literally could not have done it without Ash Ankudinoff. And then all of our mechanics – Josh and Nashie, Brett, Alana – literally impossible without any of them.”
Tayte Ryan, Kai Arbery and Neil van Niekerk put together an unbelievable championship performance in the junior men’s teams sprint, where they were only 0.1 second outside the Australian championship record but claimed a new state record.
“Ideally, we would really like to put together a team for junior worlds in China and I think given how we rode today, Kai put down an excellent start lap and we performed well as a team, so hoping for the best, but we’ll see how we go with that,” Ryan said.
“It’s been five or six years now that SA have won this with Jimmy (Glasspool) so it’s nice to keep that going.”
DAY 4 HIGHLIGHTS
Chloe Moran won in a nail-biting finish to the elite women’s points race to notch her fourth consecutive national championship in the event.
The 100-lap, 25-kilometre race was wide open right up to the final double points sprint, with Moran picking up the final two points on the offer as the fourth rider across the line to win the gold medal by one point ahead of Czech Republic’s Petra Sevcikova and Ireland’s Lara Gillespie.
“Feeling pretty excited. It was a very close race right down to the wire - couldn’t have kept it much closer, but I’m excited. I think that was my fourth in a row, so it was good to get that win here and end my week with a win,” Moran said.
Tayte Ryan is inching closer towards claiming a world record in the junior men’s 1000m time trial, where he was only 0.5% off achieving a world record in his championship win.
“Yeah look, I got pretty close to (Tom) Cornish's world record in Colombia last year. I think it's 1.04 and I did a 1.05, so we're getting close to it, and I didn't think I'd get much closer to it at sea level. And like I sort of came back from junior worlds, and I really wanted to chase after it, and that's sort of been my big motivation and goal, to chase after Cornish's record. And I'm really happy that I could get within a few tenths of it today,” Ryan said.
Wil Holmes, Jack Clark, Kalan Tucker, Wil Mathwin and Jameson Key were impressive in the junior men’s team pursuit, claiming top spot on the podium and a state record.
“Yeah, I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of Jameson Key here. He came into the final. It's no easy task to come into such a high-pressure situation and start our TP, and he got us off to the best possible start. Got us on schedule, and then we let Wil Holmes do the rest, as we know his calibre of riding,” Clark said.
“And then also I'd like to thank our coach, Brett Aitken. He's just so experienced in the field of team pursuiting, and without him we wouldn't be here. He has given us all of his knowledge and expertise from years of racing himself and coaching other successful teams. It was essential to our success today.”
DAY 5 HIGHLIGHTS
South Australia continued its dominance of the elite men’s team sprint national championship on the final day of the TrackNats, producing a championship record time of 42.965 seconds in the gold-medal final.
The South Australian trio of Maxwell Liebeknecht, Leigh Hoffman and Matthew Glaetzer led from the gate with last man Glaetzer crossing the finish line 0.794 seconds ahead of the silver medallists.
Their championship record time refreshes their own winning time from 2023 of 43.525 seconds, set by Liebeknecht, Hoffman and James Brister.
“Got it done, it was just nice to see Leigh hit the celebration griddy there at the end right after,” Liebeknecht said
“It was good, cracked the sub-18 second start lap, delivered the boys, went nearly a whole second faster than what we did in qualification so that was real nice, and of course the championship record.
“It’s pretty hard having two of the fastest in the world practically on your wheels, so, I was a bit nervous, but it was good.”
