…an ambitious project: how many categories did you say? Unfortunately, posting a revised start list was necessitated when it became obvious that a number of riders, when registering, had misunderstood the structure of the event and had entered for the non-championship option for ATTA-only (non-AusCycling) riders but it boosted the numbers in a few of the championship categories. And it's nice to see the participation numbers back up at a level we haven't seen for a few years, even at the Good Friday event.
There's quite a list of course records and some will certainly be challenged but some have withstood such challenges for quite a while. Matt Burton will be defending his 30km record against the likes of Jarred Anderson who, riding his 50th ATTA ride this time, pinched Matt's 20km record from him last Easter, and repeated the new record time earlier this year! Matt's 30km record was set thirteen years ago but he reset the 25km record this year and is not likely to surrender the 30km easily, unless to himself. Emily Mascaro set a brilliant time in the recent 40km ride on the PSP at Ellenbrook in pretty difficult conditions but isn't likely to have it all her own way next Friday with people like Sophia Sammons on the list.
It's eight years since Don McCracken last had a PB on this course but what better way could there be to celebrate his birthday than with another PB at this event?
We're underway and the first rider has crossed the finish line: 1-lapper Oscar Winson in the U11 category. And he finishes as the fastest of the category. U15 Oscar Barratt is on the top of the list of 2-lappers having displaced U13 Constantine Gibson.
All the U13s have now completed their 10km; so has Oscar who can relax for a while before he has another go later in the list in the ATTA section following. He remains U15 fastest with Ruby Smits fastest U15F. We're now well into the 3-lappers and para-Hayden has 2-laps to his credit.
Campbell McDowell sits at the head of the 15km list with a PB of 20:37; Richard Williams also has a sizeable PB for the 3-laps: better than 2min—is it a good morning for a ride around the lake? BOM says it's only 14° but with a moderate SE across the long back straight, Cienna TInkler is the fastest of the U17 girls. It looks like there are a couple of DNS in that group. Cooper Dunlop just displaced Jacob Nicholls for a podium place in the U17M but Jacob has the consolation of a PB. It's been a pretty tight tussle within that group: only 3sec between Campbell and Cooper.
Times are appearing for the long list of 20km riders with Stu Helm (Masters) having the fastest lap time so far; Jaco Nel and Toby Gollagher lead the U19 chaps and Indiah Coupland, the U19 girls.
It looks like there could be a problem with the Webscorer feed.
No, it's active again and Stu Helm sits at the top of the 20km list; no PB,however. Jarred is flying around the perimeter track as expected and has completed two of his six laps and seems to be accelerating. Sophia seems to have Emily under control in the 'Elite' women's category. But there is less than a second separating Jarred and Matt after two laps; exactly 1 sec after three! Kate Bonner trails Sophia by about a minute and Emily is about 30sec further back. But Matt has now reversed the order and leads Jarred by 1sec; two laps to go… Hey, David, turn the video to look across the lake and send me that feed? Ah, Matt now has 5sec advantage and they're on the final lap; Lyndon Greeshaw is a further minute off the pace; Matt is WAY ahead of his previous time for the 30km around the lake, finishing about 6min faster, 4.5sec ahead of Jarred. And Sophia finished with a 1:15 advantage over Kate. These times need confirmation, of course. I've just been told Matt was blocked a bit just after the start line by another rider passing an even slower rider; it happens. It must be pretty busy out there. Both the U23 riders are also done, Matthew Connan the faster—unsurprisingly, I'd think.
We have less than a handful of 20km riders yet to start. Apparently a noticable breeze arrived and the first few on the 20km list haven't been posting PBs but Jaco Nel did so a bit earlier, as did Toby Gollagher. Oscar Barratt was more than a minute faster on his second two-lapper and that is a 2min PB.
There are a couple of results that will need to come from the video back-up (transponders that failed) but the provisional results are up on '88'. It looks like there's list of DNS riders as usual.
And a PS: all the blokes in the AusCycling 30km bunch bettered the old course record and Sophia also bettered the benchmark for the women. Oscar Barratt's second ride was a new Junior record, the medal-winning, earlier ride, just a warm-up, apparently; each ride, in turn, established a new PB. And the second ride was Oscar's entry into the 40km/h club.
But Matt Burton's close-to-eight-km/h improvement to his previous course record time would have to be seen as a stand-out achievement in this event. Fifty eight riders averaged better than 40km/h at this event where the average speed was 38km/h (21-49km/h) and riders ages ranged from 7 to 72—a couple of bits of trivia to chew on (perhaps).
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