Jun. championship to Fowler

Press, 22 September 1980, Page 18

Jun. championship to Fowler

By

RAY CAIRNS

Soft though the Halswell block may be, it still produced a surprisingly spirited Canterbury junior road-cycl-ing championship on Saturday and a win to Brian Fowler. ■ .■’ :

In the eyes of some, Fowler was the favourite’ for the title for which he came second last year but doubts still lingered whether the course would prove to be testing enough for him to convert his ability into the right result.' Partly from his own initiative and partly from the type of race produced by a healthy dollop of team racing, Fowler was a handsome winner from John Hughes, with Glen Fuller being the surprise winner of the bronze medal 44s in arrears and out-sprinting Thaddeus Julian. Nine seconds behind them, Peter McEwen led across the line Tony Euller; William Rastrick, Shane Smith, and Murray Steele, the latter getting a start after appealing against his week’s suspension. Steele had no chance at all: there is obviously some brooding discontent at the increasingly prevalent team riding from his Veio-Carpet Market club and in the restricted field he found himself aone.

F o w I e r (Woolston W.M.C.), the only other one of the first nine not from the Papanui club, did not face such problems because he has been an innocent (and absent, in Australia) party while all this has gone on. But he still did not have an easy ride. The field split up before halfway and only Paul Clare of the top-fancied group missed the break. The real action came in the final 20km when Hughes made a solo break that he could not really establish to a' winning degree. After he had been just clear for 10km Fowler joined him, McEwen tried his hardest but could not quite bridge the gap, and Steele had no help at all in the chase from the entire Papanui squad left back with him.

So Fowler and Hughes forged clear but at the finish Hughes nerhaps erred in encouraging Fowler to lead out. When Fowler did so the advantage he gained in the jump stayed with him to the finish. The monkeying round fn the bunch also enabled Glen Fuller and Julian to ‘Slip clear and with all the medals gone Steele was a distant and disillusioned fifth" and last of the bunch

and ninth over all. There was just as much action, though of a different type, in the boys’ championship, which was won convincingly in the sprint .by lan Cooper from Malcolm Robertson. For Michael Hazeldine and Craig Nichols, the next two place-getters, it was a case of what might have been.

Nichols was unquestionably the principal attacker and the. strongest In the field and he tested and hammered the field in each of the four laps.: Each time only Hazeldine could bridge the' gap hut once there he surprisingly showed no in-

clination to keep the break working and clear. Maybe he fancied that he could beat the bunch anyway but he would certainly have strengthened his chances of winning had he built on Nichols’s initiative.

The • pre-race favourites won the other championships contested on Saturday. Ron. Kennedy continued the tradition of the veteran title changing hands every year since its inception ana Dean Harvey ’ became t;he first to retain the junior boys’ championship. Although the vetefans’ race often looked to be a steady, friendly revolving

round ‘ the comfortable course, there was no Igfk of action. The first iniuative came from Les Fibbins and John Arthur, followed by a solo bid by Don. Johnson and another by Roy Pemberton before they all settled; for a sprint finish. • There Kennedy was too strong for Johnson and Basil Ensor had' too much running for another notable sprinter in Roger Fowler. 1 Harvey’s championship was also won in a sprint,; kicking on when RichardBruce made his challenge; Results, Page 20 ■ ;