Report: GB Paralympic Team in Australia - Part 3

 

Posted 4 Feb 2007

Report & Pics - Team Manager Dave Mellor

 

Team Manager Dave Mellor continues his reports from Australia where the GB Paralympic squad have had their first real tastes of racing.

 

David Stone enjoys lunch in a wonderful setting

 

Friday of week 2 came all too quickly and the camp split in three as training ended and racing began. The training has been great and the whole team have been behind the decision to come out here. The City of Bendigo is such a warm and welcoming place and the Bendigo Advertiser featured the squad on the front and back pages of Wednesdays paper with a picture feature inside as well. Following that the Mayor's office contacted us and invited us to lunch which we were very happy to attend. The lady Mayoress gave a very nice speech, reflecting on the fact that the indigenous people of the area were the aborigines and that we were actually standing on Jarra tribe land. (apols if the spelling is a bit off).

 

The team meeting the mayoress of Bendigo

 

The Mayoress asked Darren Kenny, who the Advertiser proclaimed as one of the best known cyclists in Great Britain, why we had come to Bendigo and he said that the GB team over the years had built up an affinity with Bendigo and it seemed as though Bendigo had actually chosen us rather than us choosing Bendigo. I am sure the relationship between team GB and Bendigo will go from strength to strength and hopefully we can support the very famous Bendigo International Madison at some stage as the organisers are very keen to include AWD events.

 

Rachel Morris - also enjoying the setting at lunch

We in World Class are used to change and when the tandem riders, David Stone and Rachel Morris received invites to a race which was not part of our plan, we quickly changed flights and hotel bookings to accommodate them. So on Friday the Tandem group with National AWD Coach Chris Furber flew down to Sydney to compete in the President's Cup Carnival at the Dunc Gray Velodrome. David and Rachel prepared for a very early start to get down to Geelong in the rental for a road race courtesy of the Geelong Cycling Club. The rest of the group being supervised by Dr Gary Brickley and mechanic Spike Taylor got an early night ready for the early morning training ride as all of the bikes were being road freighted to Sydney at 10am on Saturday morning.

 

David Stone on a dirt road section

The road race was the first race of the day and once at the site it was a quick unload and warm up prior to signing on. The organiser was not quite sure where to place David but we decided on C grade and he set off up the road in the Geelong equivalent of Paris Roubaix. The course was 3 laps of a 12km circuit but with a major section on dirt road. That did not really suit David as he had never ridden on deep and loose gravel so it was a case of giving the others some pain on the tarmac and then going quickly out the back on the dirt road, chasing on the tarmac and loosing more time on the gravel again until the finish.

 

Rachel Morris in action

 

Rachel had a couple of male hand cyclists (thanks for the invite Squizzy!) to compete against who were just a bit too fresh for her after 2 weeks of hard training and Rachel managed to hold them for a lap before beginning a lonely two lap time trial. Not a very satisfactory day but as I knew the area from my days with the women's squad I knew a very nice cafe and so we did lunch "at the heads" in Barwon Head, a stage start and finish of the Geelong Tour later next month. The staff are absolutely fantastic and we got the best table, a window seat overlooking the estuary on this cafe built on a jetty that runs out into the sea and smiles came back to faces.

I've just received a quick phone call from Chris Furber to say that Anthony Kappes and Barney Storey have successfully worn their brand new Adidas World Champions race suits to victory in the Men's Tandem event in Sydney and Aileen McGlynn and Ellen Hunter came a close second to the Australian Paralympic Champion Lindy Hou.

Sunday 4th February sees the whole camp pack up from the Quest Apartments in Bendigo and head off to Melbourne and a short flight to Sydney where the Australian Championships start on Monday with 1km and 500m Time Trials for all.