Breakaway Events - St Kilda Festival 

Sunday 13th February 2005

Breakaway Events teamed up with sponsors, HLP financial services and RideWiser and  Carnegie Caulfield CC to promote the St Kilda Festival in Melbourne for 2005. Click here for the write-up of the 2004 event

Emma Rickards easily took the final sprint in a race which was fast, but did not really set St Kilda's Fitzroy Street alight with tactical action and breakaways. Do not be misled, the small bunch of 16 riders which lined up for this event gave their collective all and several riders tried to go off on the front, but nothing succeeded. 

The course was a 300m 'hotdog' criterium course with the start / finish line about 1/2 way along the straight. This type of criterium racing is fast and hard - sprinting along the straights, braking for the corner, then accelerating again.... Rickards outsprinted another local rider, Kirsty Bortolin, who took second and Lisa Friend, third. Briana James was fourth.

Speaking afterwards, Rickards reflected that after working to support VIS team-mate Jenny Macpherson in the recent Jayco Bay Series and Tour Down Under Support events, it was nice to be working for herself, although "Jen had a great series and I enjoyed every moment of it working for her. I think that's the way it is when team racing like that comes off and you can feel confident that your team-mate's going to come through with a good sprint". Working alone brings with it the problem that "the pressure's on and you get marked the whole time". (Macpherson has been at the Australian track Championships this week (click here for Championships write-ups). That said, she was clearly pleased with her win and had jumped from behind a strong effort by Kirsty Bortolin into the final corner which required a strong finish on the finishing straight.

Next races on the agenda for Rickards and her VIS team-mates are the Geelong Tour, with the UCI Geelong World Cup a few days later at the end of February, then the Wellington Tour and corresponding UCI World Cup event a week later. She will be riding with Macpherson, Kate Mactier (who has been sidelined recently with a bout of pneumonia which put her in hospital over Christmas), Helen Kelly and Amy Gillett.

Result

1  Emma Rickards

2  Kirsty Bortolin

3  Lisa Friend

4  Briana James

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