My Oceania week began last Tuesday being in camp with Cycling NZ as a lead in to the track championships and it was a great experience for both me and friend and team mate Libby Arbuckle.
We spent a few days practising our team pursuit and other racing skills as well as doing goal setting tasks and off bike trainings with our cycling NZ coaches, this was a great insight into what it takes to reach the upper levels of our sport.
We had to ride the ILT Track Carnival on the Tuesday night with three races 2 off them scratch races and 1 was an elimination, I managed to win both scatch races but absolutely butchered the elimination and was out early.
Thursday came and it was great to get racing and first event we had was Team Pursuit Qualifying although we had to compete against the NZ and Aussie Elite women it was still a thrill. That night we rode the final and bettered or time by 4 seconds so good that we showed improvement from the morning session and I had to pull double laps so was pretty knackered by the end.
That was it for me until Saturday for the Omnium event which started with the scratch race where I finished 2nd so got a good starting position for Individual Pursuit coming up. Managed to win the Pursuit with a new personal best time and beat the U17 NZ record holder from Track Nationals this year so now went into equal lead with Ellyse Andrews. The Elimination in the evening I managed to win as well and fortunately Ellyse went out really early so I skipped away by few more points till racing next day.
First up on Sunday for Omnium was the 500TT and Ellyse set a blistering time but I managed second place and kept a good lead with the Flying Lap next. Ellyse once again won but I was only 0.3 back in second place and still a good lead coming into the final event where big gains can be made.
The final event I managed to control the race and pick up points throughout the race consolidating my lead and winning the event, I was so thrilled the highlight of my cycling career to date.
I was also entered for the points race 20 minutes after finish of my last race and we looked and asked about pulling out as I thought I was spent after last effort but Cycling NZ coaches said to race but just concentrate on a couple of sprints and use it as experience. To my shock once we got rolling I didn’t feel to bad and managed 1 point in first sprint without really contesting it, so managed to win next then second in the next. Now it all came down to last sprint to win as was tied on points with Emma Cumming and she was sitting on my wheel, got the bell with lap to go and down the back straight it was all on but she couldn’t roll me and managed to hold her off and win.
This was a great and rewarding week for me and Libby and im sure it will give us both a rael boost and focus to push harder to reaching our goals.
Emily Shearman