Behind the Scenes at the Australian Road Nationals
It’s 2021 and we’re at a bike race. It sounds like a fantasy until you remember that some countries are quite capable of not letting the virus spread through their populations like wildfire. The only thing the Aussie government lets spread like wildfire is… wildfire.
Yes, it’s the Australian Road Nationals. With no spectators, of course, but that’s about the best-case scenario right now. Although the weather was drizzly, which is an affront to everything that Australia is supposed to stand for.
Ballarat hosted the race this year, slamming in all kinds of disciplines like crit champs and whatnot. We quite like Ballarat, even though our Visit Ballarat baseball cap is a bit of an ironic choice of headwear whenever we put it on. Ballarat vs Geelong is the ultimate Aussie bike race host city head-to-head, and we’d give it to Ballarat just based on recency bias.
Anyway, CyclingNews and Cycling Tips have already done their weepy write-ups about Cameron Meyer finally succeeding at blah blah blah, so here’s our punk rock dispatch instead.
Some Bikes
You could look up the numbers to find out whose bike this is, then come up with a belaboured joke to tie the caption up neatly. In our youth we’d do that. But not anymore. You just know #73 is going to be called something like Benis Bumtickler if we don’t look it up too.
Nice blue Garmin case there. As a pro cyclist, you have to be deftly protective of your Garmin right up until you win the Tour, then they send you as many as you want for free. That’s also the point that you start badmouthing them on Zoom calls with other people. Go figure.
Junior Women Criterium… Maybe
Just some photos from the podium. Might be the U23s instead. At our age, 22 and 12 look about the same. Anybody under 30 is officially a child.
Is that “McCain” logo in the background the oven chips company? Hope so.
The Start/Finish Line
Here’s a palette cleanser after the children. The deranged former Cyclry contributor who went full QAnon can’t accuse us of being part of a secret pedo cabal if we only post photographs of finish lines.
This should be safe too, although after Pizzagate we might still be violating the QAnon rules somehow.
Para Cycling Champs
Gotta admit, this looks a bit daft. Note that this is an anti-tandem editorial position, not an ableist editorial position.
The winner! Love that Aussie champs jersey. There are a lot of categories, so we’re going to list their respective winners here:
Men’s Results
- C2 – Darren Hicks (Norwood CC)
- C3 – David Nicholas (Mackay Cycling Club)
- C4 – Patrick Best (Mersey Valley Devonport CC)
- C5 – Michael Gallagher (Carnegie Caulfield CC)
- H1 – Beau Vernon (Southern Masters Cycling Club)
- H3 – Alex Welsh (Leongatha Cycling Club)
- H4 – Grant Allen (Port Adelaide Cycling Club)
- H5 – Stuart Tripp (Alpine Cycling Club)
- Intellectually Impaired – Nathan Glarvey (Balmoral Cycling Club)
- MB – Benjamin Said (Manly Warringah CC)
- T2 – Stuart Jones (Newcastle Cycling Club)
Women’s Results
- C3 – Paige Greco (Port Adelaide Cycling Club)
- C4 – Meg Lemon (Port Adelaide Cycling Club)
- C5 – Bronwyn Dolman (Port Adelaide Cycling Club)
- H1 – Emilie Miller (Bathurst CC)
- H3 – Lauren Parker (Hunter District Cycling Club)
- Intellectually Impaired – Georgia Powning (Preston Cycling Club)
- T2 – Carol Cooke (St Kilda Cycling Club)
Junior Men’s Road Race
Gloomy day for a bike race.
| 1. | Dylan GEORGE | 2h46:21 | |||
| 2. | Zac MARRIAGE | +0 | |||
| 3. | Aiden SINCLAIR | +0 | |||
| 4. | Tyler TOMKINSON | +0 | |||
| 5. | James PANIZZA | +0 | |||
| 6. | Ronan TEESE | +0 | |||
| 7. | Lachlan MILLER | +4 | |||
| 8. | Luke TUCKWELL | +1:29 | |||
| 9. | Hamish MCKENZIE | +1:41 | |||
| 10. | Fergus BROWNING | +1:41 |
U23 Men’s Road Race
Stop looking at us, Joshua Davis. Yeah, this time we did have the gumption to look up that bib number.
| 1. | Thomas BENTON | 3h33:59 | |||
| 2. | Rudy PORTER | +25 | |||
| 3. | Carter TURNBULL | +25 | |||
| 4. | Jensen PLOWRIGHT | +42 | |||
| 5. | Cooper SAYERS | +42 | |||
| 6. | Bailey WALTERS | +42 | |||
| 7. | Ben METCALFE | +45 | |||
| 8. | Dylan HOPKINS | +45 | |||
| 9. | Godfrey SLATTERY | +1:26 | |||
| 10. | Matthew DINHAM | +1:26 |
Women’s Road Race
They combined the Elite and U23. Fair enough.
Sarah Roy was the hero of the day. Brilliant ride.
Solid holding technique, although her grip on the champagne looks a bit tenuous in the second picture. We suppose that’s the inevitable result of making every cyclist who wins a race play a game of Buckaroo on the podium.
| 1. | Sarah ROY | 3h01:52 | |||
| 2. | Grace BROWN | +1:16 | |||
| 3. | Lauretta HANSON | +1:18 | |||
| 4. | Amber PATE | +1:25 | |||
| 5. | Emily WATTS* | +1:27 | |||
| 6. | Neve BRADBURY* | +1:55 | |||
| 7. | Sarah GIGANTE* | +1:55 | |||
| 8. | Elizabeth STANNARD | +2:14 | |||
| 9. | Rachel NEYLAN | +2:14 | |||
| 10. | Ruby ROSEMAN-GANNON | +3:18 |
Elite Men
Cameron Meyer won it. Get your magnifying glass out and try to find him in this photo.
| 1. | Cameron MEYER | 4h39:12 | |||
| 2. | Kelland O’BRIEN | +0 | |||
| 3. | Scott BOWDEN | +0 | |||
| 4. | Nicholas WHITE | +0 | |||
| 5. | Jesse EWART | +0 | |||
| 6. | James WHELAN | +4 | |||
| 7. | Luke DURBRIDGE | +4 | |||
| 8. | Mark O’BRIEN | +8 | |||
| 9. | Timothy ROE | +10 | |||
| 10. | Chris HARPER | +1:44 |