In what were perfect conditions for outdoor teams pursuiting and sprinting on Saturday, Blackburn showed that there is a core passion in the club for these types of events. This was shown by the clubs consistent performance across all grades at the 2003 State Teams Pursuit and Olympic Sprint Championships held at Brunswick.
The teams Olympic Sprint title saw the Elite Men's team of Martin, Woods and England take Silver behind Chelsea by the narrowest of margins (rumoured to be less than 1/10th of a second!).
The Women then backed it up with their own Gold (Lisa Friend, Catherine Allen & Rachel Rademaker) and Bronze (Tabatha Cole, Nicole Holt & Emily Phillips). There were some awesome teams entered, and to place was indeed a great effort. Well done to all.
In the Pursuit the juniors went exceptionally well. For the first time in years we entered a J13 team. Well done to Aaron Eynaud, Peter Vlahos, Chris Perkins & Jesse Gannon who stuck it out and got their first ever state medals - Silver. An awesome achievement.
Not to be outdone the J15 team of Sean Bourke, Lisa Friend, Dale Reith & Luke Petrie took Bronze in their division.
The J17 faced stiff competition, but were outclassed by stronger teams. Congratulations to Curtis Yildirim, Iain Treloar, Ross Hamilton, Sean and Louise Bourke and for their strong riding and flying the BBN flag.
The women's Pursuit team of Kirsty Bortolin, Rachel Rademaker, Tabatha Cole & Emily Phillips took Gold ahead of the Carnegie team in a hotly contested final. The girls have definitely come of age and are riding to an exceptional level of skill and competitiveness.
The BBN 2 Elite men's team of Ed Tutty, Rowan Geddes, Richard Knight, Kain Nunn and Andrew Steele (sub for final) were drawn to ride in the first heat. The guys set a cracking pace which had all the other teams diving for their schedule calculators as the guys set a time which would have won them bronze last year. Indeed, their pace proved to be too hot for everyone except our A team (Richie England, Steve Martin, Barry Woods, Jamie Goddard), Carnegie A and Brunswick. But it didn't matter they were in the finals.
The finals were fantastic to watch. The B team went out at a pace which was ten seconds under their qualifying time. Row did a big turn of pace at 4 laps to go and the boys were even with Brunswick. But the Brunswick team found a little bit extra and rolled the guys inside the last two laps, winning by around 2 seconds. For the second time in two years the guys finished 4th in the titles - an excellent effort given the level of competition. These teams were riding for sheep stations!
So the A team came on Fastest qualifiers and defending champions, up against a Carnegie team which was out to break the party. And they nearly did. With the crowd going crazy, and the BBN boys down, Barry did a sacrificial turn to get the guys up with 4 laps to go. The Carnegie guys came back strong and it was going down to the wire. With Richie driving home, the guys crossed the line and took the title by less time than it takes to shear a fly - well under 1/10 of a second. It was a fantastic race. Well done to Steve, Richie, Barry and Jamie and to Carnegie for making it a fantastic race to watch. That is what state level pursuit final should be - fast, tactical and close.
With a strong showing this year you can bet that the other clubs will be out to roll us, so we had better keep our guard up for next year. Could it possibly get any better than Saturday?
Your Roving Reporter