Cycling Australia Awards, a holiday and the Melbourne Cup on Wheels!

The night after the World Cup finished the annual Cycling Australia awards were held. I always look forward to this night as its a great opportunity to get dressed up and celebrate Australia’s best. I was nominated for Female Track Cyclist of the year, in which Anna won – again a very worthy recipient! Cameron Meyer took out the major award in the Sir Hubert Opperman award – he beat some respectable riders including Anna who won it the previous year. A great achievement for Cameron at such a young age and shows that his future as one of Australia’s greatest riders is looking pretty bright.

Left to right - Cameron Meyer, Me, Sophie Kocass, Matt Glaetzer, Scott Law, Peter Lewis, Scott Sunderland

Anna Meares and myself! Anna's dress is a limited edition, stunning!

The sprint group - Anna, Matt, Peter, Alex, Berthy, Daniel, Me, Shane, Jason, Scott, Gary

I was also lucky enough to continue letting my hair down for the preceding week in Melbourne, having a small holiday. It was such a nice break for me to be 'normal' for a few days and train when I wanted to and do lots of fun things. I stayed up late, slept in and ate a lot (too much!) of good food! I had my first experience in a casino (in which I lost!), watched a movie at the I-max theatre, went shopping and basically just chilled out! It was great!

The end of the week was topped off with some more racing at the Victorian Keirin Championships which I won against some of Australia's up and coming like Adele Sylvester and Imogen Jelbart I also rode some races I wouldn’t normally ride in the Women's Melbourne Cup on wheels which is a handicap – I also won this holding off arguably the best female athlete in cycling currently in Marianne Vos from the Netherlands who is a World Champion in three different cycling disciplines. It was an honour to race against her but as punishment for me winning the handicap she blew me away in the scratch race by breaking away and I was unable to chase her back down! I finished 4^th. I had the most fun I have had for a very long time at this race and I am very keen to get out to do some more domestic races like that in the future just so I can remember why I got involved in this sport – for the fun carnivals like that! The Australian Madison Championships were also on this night and Cameron Meyer and Jack Bobridge showed the rest of the teams how its done by taking something like 5laps! A great effort by the boys and a fantastic race to watch.

Me in the handicap - not quite hurting yet!

The Keirin Final

I was sad to leave Melbourne and what was a great holiday, but had to get back to reality and start my last stages of preparation back in Adelaide for the World Championships. Next up I go home for a small break for Christmas before heading back to Adelaide for my team mates wedding in country Victoria for New Years Eve. Until then take care everyone!