Kate Cullen

 

15th of March, 2006; by Larry Hickmott

Home Nations for Commonwealth Games

 

 

The sole Womens Endurance rider in the Scottish team taking to the track this week will be Kate Cullen. Like the endurance men for Scotland, Kate has spent plenty of time in Australia preparing for what will be her biggest event so far. Asked how her own preparation has gone, Kate replied, "its been pretty good. Tasmania was good and I have been to quite a few track carnivals but the men get about seven races and the women only get three which is a bit disappointing."

Asked to compare the women's racing in Australia to what she gets back home, Kate explained that "I think the racing here is more aggressive and you get bigger bunches here where the riders feel more comfortable. Generally the bike handling here is pretty good where a lot of the races are on the big concrete tracks. I think the standard is pretty high and there are a lot of fast girls here. Even the young ones are fast".

Kate arrived in the Games village from the country town of Ballarat around 10 days ago where she has spent much of her time in the country. In the major country centre for Victoria, Kate says the weather there was both hot and cold and laments the fact the house had no air conditioning. Thankfully she said though, there was a swimming pool not far away but the effects of the drought there were also quite evident outside the town.

"Its quite sad to see, the lakes dried up and the wildlife with nowhere to go" Kate explained, a scene not to different to the one I witnessed when I travelled through the area in 2003 all the way up to Queensland. On a different note though, she says the crit racing there was lot of fun especially for the women. She didn't seem too pleased with the time of morning the riders go out training at, 6.30am, to escape the heat and traffic, but added they were fun to do."

"Everyone here is so laid back and claims to have a Scottish grandparent so I quite like it here."

Moving on to talk about the Games, Kate says there aren't any nerves yet but with the village starting to get very busy, she is starting to feel the atmosphere of being at a Games. "You are starting to see famous athletes now and you realise what you're actually here for. It's quite weird though because we have Chris (Hoy) who is probably the most famous Scottish athlete and to us, he's just Chris. So its weird staying with an Olympic champion and then hearing others saying 'look at them' when they see another Olympic champion."

Asked what events she will do, Kate says the Points for definite but adds, she may, also do the Sprint. "There are not many Women riding the sprint and I think I'd like to support the event because I don't want to see it thrown out of the Games and I think I could do a semi respectable time".

Her final preparations have been going well she says. "I'm doing pretty fast times in training and although I don't know how many are going to be in the race (Points), I don't think it will be a massive field. I think that will work to my advantage and I expect it to be a fast race. Kate Bates and Rochelle Gilmore will be pretty had to beat I reckon."

Good luck to Kate in her events at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.