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Day 3

Jayco Bay Cycling Classic

^{Wednesday 5th January - Sunday 9th January}

^{(incorporating Australian Championships (Friday) & Victorian State Championships (Sunday))}

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Day 3 - Geelong - The Collection is Complete!

Just a week before she defends her road race and time trial championship titles, Oenone Wood has added the criterium championship to her National Championship collection. She didn’t have it all her way, though. As she predicted when speaking to WomensCycling.net after the Portarlington round of the Jayco Bay Classic Series yesterday, there were plenty of riders thirsty for the title in Geelong’s Ritchie Boulevard tonight. 

Throughout the race, the attacks kept coming – Bianca Rogers and winner on this round last year, Emma James were active. The NSWIS team had strength in depth – Rochelle Gilmore and Amanda Spratt both showed themselves at the front too. Nothing came of any of the accelerations, though, even the very brave and probably the most long-lived attack of the race by Emma Colson. She went just before the riders were given the ‘5 to go’ board and lasted a lap before being swallowed back into the bunch. 

Oenone Wood was working for Skye-Lee Armstrong in the intermediate sprints – enabling the youngster to retain her aim of taking the green sprint competition jersey. She will wear green again tomorrow - as second placed in the competition to Oenone Wood, who will wear the yellow Series Leader jersey which she also holds.

Unfortunately, in the competition to get into and out of the final corner in good position, there were two crashes on the final corner – one involving Kerryn Charman and Hayley Rutherford, amongst others – one of whose bikes ended up in a palm tree near the beach. The other crash occurred just the other side of the cornier – VIS and Drapac riders involved in that one. The good news is that everyone got up and pedalled to the finish line.

Staying out of trouble at the front was Oenone Wood, who outsprinted Rochelle Gilmore and Emma Rickard. Rickard said after wards that it was good to get the medal and to be recognised for staying on her bike (last year in the rain, she made TV fame as footage of her falling off was broadcast around Australia). 

Undoubtedly pleased with her win, Wood’s tactics had been to “stay on the front out of trouble because I knew the last corner can be a bit hairy on this course. Hopefully, even if I had to lead out of the corner, I would have the legs to hold on to the finish.”  Commenting upon the racing, Wood acknowledged that “it was pretty aggressive today, especially from the NSWIS and Siemens teams, so I had a lot of moves to make. My team-mates were helping me out a bit, it was a good race.” Tactics had been to stay near the front – react if any move went and looked like staying away “I watched the men's support race and saw that when the break got away they just stayed away easily, so I thought I’d just have to try and follow everything and make sure noone gets down the road.”

The race winning move came at the last corner. Wood  had identified Rickard as a potential race winner – following her move on the last lap. Then at the last corner, as Rickard led out, Wood “heard all the bike going down behind me, so I thought ‘just go for it’”

Despite winning the championship, Wood retained her Jayco Bay Series leader's jersey. She has her sights upon the team doing well in the series before she thinks about next week’s road and time trial national championships. In particular, the Mercure on Swanston team will be looking to keep Skye-Lee Armstrong in the sprinter’s jersey in her own right.

Results  

Geelong - Round 3 Result

Overall Competition

Sprint Competition

Team Competition

Photos

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