The prizegiving for road bikes on the track and track bikes was held on Tuesday night. We had a great turn out of riders and parents and supporters.
The evening started with a welcome from Paul van Velthooven, chairperson of the Bike Manawatu board. He commented on the approaching date for the announcement of the successful bid for the Cycling Centre of Excellence.
Greg Bryan gave a summary of the Monday night road bikes. Only 1 night was cancelled during the season and that was due to wind. A range of ages were catered for. Everyone improved over the season. This could be verified by looking at times for selected events at the start of the season and comparing them to times for the same events later in the season.
Safety was great and not one accident was reported. Thanks goes to the helpers and parents. There was definitely more competition for some of the riders as new riders appeared in the post Christmas season. Overall it was an excellent season of racing.
Ian Gray then gave a summary of the track bikes which raced on Tuesday nights. He believed that it was the best track season in the past 10 years. One night there were 39 riders including some from Wanganui. Individually there were 69 riders registered to ride. There was not as much wind as other years. 13 records were broken. These were by Lachie Ferguson, Megan Blatchford, who broke several records, Kate Stewart, Brent Zimmerman, Michaela Drummond, Steve Stannard, Kelsi Eccles, Marcel Hollenstein and Barry Gilliland. All these people received a special congratulations.
A good team competed at the WCNI track champs with good results. Bike Manawatu riders were selected to go to track nationals in Invercargill and gained 12 medals between them.
Thanks goes to all the officials that helped. There was only one crash during the season. A hard luck prize was given to Jordan Castle who recovered quickly and was back racing within a couple of weeks. Small gifts of thanks were also presented to Darren Humphrey who wrote “stellar” reports for the newspapers and the weekly newsletter and to Clint Humphries who helped prepare the track bikes that were rented out at the start of the season.
Simon van Velthooven then spoke briefly and passed around his medals that he had won at the Commonwealth Games and at Beijing World Champs. He told those that had won medals during the season that these are what they should aspire to. He spoke about what his training involves and what he does when back in Feilding including running one legged up the grandstand at Johnstone Park. The medal that he won at Beijing means the most to him as he was the best on the day.
The most improved rider from road bikes on Monday nights was awarded to Jayden Bond
The most improved track rider was awarded to Ruby Perry
Other results from the evening will be posted in the results section