Cycling win to Doherty

Press, 18 June 1979, Page 17

Cycling win to Doherty

Arriving back in New Zealand little more than 12 hours before a national championship is hardly ideal preparation for a cycling event. But Steve Doherty, returning from Australia, took it all in his stride, and with it the cash 40km championship, at Tai Tapu on Saturday. The course was to Teddington and return, thus twice climbing Gebbies Pass, and it was on the second ascent that Doherty led Clayton Yaxley, Owen Wylie and Ross Currie clear of the bunch, and they were not sighted again. They finished in that order with Grant Scott beating in Brian Thomson and Frank Hooper for fifth. The best of the juniors, Jim Ward, was next, and runner-up in that grade was

Stuart Dawson, aged 16, only 9sec behind Ward. But the Otago riders, who included the junior favourite, Bruce Carvell, had their revenge yesterday. They won the national 40km team time trial championship by a minute from Canterbury A. The Otago team of Thomson, Carvell, Tony McManus, Wayne Hillary and Brian Harris, did 58min 2sec. Canterbury was weakened by John Cleary’s illness—he missed the whole week-end’s racing—and brought in Tony Morris. The remainder of the team was Hooper, Yaxley, Michael Doyle and Gary Radbumd. Third place went to a creditable West Coast A team, in 59min 2sec. Dennis Fahey led the team which also included J. Jones, G. Peters and W. and C. Patterson.