Tight racing at the Age Group Road Cycling Nationals

Ally Wollaston (St Peter's School, Cambridge) celebrates with her dog Frankie after winning the Women's U19 Road Race. PHOTO: Dave Lintott Photography.

Some 670 of the country’s leading cyclists including many of the best secondary school riders competed for their clubs in the Wairarapa over three days this past weekend at the Vantage Age Group Road Cycling Nationals.
 
The championships saw Time Trials on day one and Road Races on days two and three.

A wrap of leading results involving secondary school riders in the junior races is below.

Time Trials

Mountain biker Phoebe Young (Mount Aspiring College) defended her title and edged out last year’s U17 winner Ally Wollaston (St Peter’s School, Cambridge) to secure the U19 Women’s Time Trial jersey.

The U19 men’s title went to last year’s U17 winner Finn Fisher-Black (Nelson College) who was named earlier this month in the team bound for the Junior Track World Championships in August.

Fisher-Black battled wind throughout but was able to put in a good ride and take out the national title over Jayden Kuijpers (St Peter’s College, Auckland) and Lachlan Dickson (Auckland Grammar School).
 
“I was holding a bit of energy back ready for the headwind on the way back which I knew was going to be a hard point in the race, when I hit the 1km sign to go it really started to hurt.
 
“There wasn’t much of a gap in the win, only 4.5sec but I’m pretty happy with the result, I just gave it all the way to the line,” said Fisher-Black.

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Laurence Pithie (Christchurch Boys’ High School) continued his success from the recent Age Group Track Nationals to add the U17 boys Time Trial title to his belt after putting in the effort and battling a windy course.
 
Prudence Fowler (Diocesan School for Girls, Auckland) won the U17 girls race backing up her win last year in the Under15 category, this time getting ahead of Maddi Douglas (Cambridge High School) and Ella Wyllie (Epsom Girls’ Grammar School).
 
August Elworthy (Takapuna Grammar School) took out the U15 boys win while Amye Kellow (Christchurch) won the U15 girls road race.

Road Races
 
Elworthy backed up his time trial win with victory in the U15 boys road race ahead of Jaxson Whyte (Roncalli College) and Jaxson Russell (Cambridge High School).  PHOTO right - credit Dave Lintott Photography. 
 
Bee Townsend (Auckland) won the U15 girls in a sprint finish ahead of Ally Gothard (St Mary’s College) and Amye Kellow.
 
Another sprint finish in the U17 Girls saw Prudence Fowler take the win over Ella Wyllie and Lucy Buckeridge (Takapuna Grammar School).
 
Ally Wollaston and Burnie McGrath (Hamilton Boys’ High School 2017) won the U19 races.
 
U19 women’s road race winner Wollaston was sure the race would end in a bunch sprint so aimed at keeping herself in a good position in the last 10kms and timing it right at the end.
 
“There were heaps of attacks in the first half, and then second half was pretty flat, long and windy and the pace kind of eased up a little bit. So it played into the sprinters’ hands at the end which was good for me” said Wollaston.

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The U17 boys race ended in a dramatic mass bunch sprint with Henri Lehrke (Francis Douglas Memorial College) securing the top spot, with Mitchel Fitzsimons (Southland Boys’ High School) only a hundredth of a second behind him with Oliver Grave (Auckland Grammar School finishing third).

Henri Lehrke left with his trophy. Photo by Dave Linott Photography.

PHOTOS: For more photos visit Dave Lintott Photography here 

RESULTS: For full results go here 
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