Gallant cycling effort fails at last gasp

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 22

Gallant cycling effort fails at last gasp

A gallant front-marker's effort; on Saturday was< crushed-in the! final few metres of the Mid-Can-’ terbury 50km cash cycling championship. won at Wakanui, near Ashburton, by Max Jones (Dun"edin). For the entire race, two frontmarkers, Patricia Stevenson, of Dunedin, and a Timaru veteran, John Corry, had led the race round the testing 17km . block. And. indeed, for the first two

: of the three laps, the two I ,• bunches most closely chasing p J their 16mln bunch—tho'se from 11 1 ’ and-13min —caught nothing. |’ • But the middle mark, irom'i \6smin. always made big inroads,;: • and the strong chance of its be-H , ing caught came to nothing when . • the simin group lost all but . fl three of its eight members in! ,!a crash. !' :l So ,the middle bunch steadilyi: .'; picked up/those in front until > only'the two at the extremes of!

the age scale remained in front,, land it was the only girl in the! field who was doing al! the hard! (work as the race neared: its; 'finish. All for nothing, however,! ;as the faster fellows came from! . behind, burying the gallant two front-markers in the sprint, ' Jones, a junior, winning a keen ! finish from Adrian Kyk and the > experienced Brian Roulston. both I of. them Tinwald club riders. The scratch riders were never i threatened in their quest for

,1 fastest time, and thus the cham-; :I pionship, even .if they got little. 11 value out of Tony McManus and' ;) eventually lost him. At the finish,} , I Wayne Hillary had too big a’ ijgear for Steve Doherty, the latliter riding a track bike with only} , an 86in gear, too small in the! 1 tail-wind. i Abbreviations used in the re-' 1 suits are: Dunedin tD.i. Hornby! (H.), Tinwald-(Tn); Timaru (Tu),j ■ Leeston (L.).' ~(■ , ■ .Mid-Canterbury 50km cham-

• !pionship.—M- Jones ; fD., SJmin),; : 172:24. 1: A. Ryk (Tn, 6Jmin) 2, 118.l l B. Roulston (Tn, 6|minF 3. R. ,i Craig (H.. 6Jmin) 4. K. Stephens r(L.. 6ijmin) 5, P. Stevenson iD., ■ 16mini 6. J. Corrv (Tu., 16min) •17, A. Dawson (H.. 13min) 8. > Fastest time.—\V. Hillary (D., scr), £6:14, 1; S. P. Doherty (H., • I sen 2, P. Wylie (Tn, scr) 3, N. r Wvlie (Tn. scr) 4. ,•- Junior. —R. van der Loo (D., IXminl, ■ 69:04, 1, S. McDonnell ■ ,(Tn, 4jmin) 2.

Veteran.—W- Stevenson (D., 21 min), 63:43, 1; W. Partell ..(D., 51min) 2. Cadets Mid-Canterbury 16km championship.—A. Crosbie (Tn; 2Jmin). 16:06. 1; P. Blackburn (Tn, 21min) 2; Pf Tytty (H., 21 min) 3; Stevenson (D.,‘ 21 min) 4: M. Crosbie (Tn. 4min) 5; B. Holley (Tn, 4min) 6. Fastest time. —A. Ward (Tn, 1 set), 14:51, 1; M. B. Hazeldine (H-, Jmin). 14:58. 2; N. Dent (H., jmin), 15:02, 3.