Day One of the Aussie Champs was the Team Sprint. For the last two year I had been successful with my NSW team mates, in 2009 with Maddie Law (who was a Junior at the time) and 2010 with Cass Kell. This year I was to team up with Cass and after breaking the Australian Championship Record last year we were hoping for another cracker of a year.
Today was ironically and most fitting Australia Day and so Cass and I were definitely out to be Australian Champions on Australia Day!
In our heat we qualified in second behind the South Australian duo of Riki Belder and Anna Meares, my own fellow Team Sprint World Champion partner, and we were only something like .005 slower so we new we were in for a great battle in the final.
In the final the South Aussies pipped us on the line to win by only 2tenths of a second. It was a great result for the South Australians with Riki winning her first Australian Title. It was sad to lose the Team Sprint Title but Cass and I did the best we could and Cass rode really well considering her bike was making all sorts of weird noises!!
Day one wasn't over for me yet though with the 500m Time Trial up in the evening. It was a super hot day and I was starting to feel the effects already that the heat was having on me. I was out to defend my Australian Title for the third year running and I felt confident as I left the gates. Having not ridden a 500 since Worlds two years ago I definitely forgot was I in for and as I got the bike up to speed I thought to myself, damn isn't it nice to follow someone in the first lap! I had quite a slow start but brought it home with a sold time and finished 1st in a near PB of 34.244 which I was quite happy with.
I was happy though that my hardest day was out of the way and was looking forward to seeing what I could do in the rest of the events.
My brother Jack also competed today in the Junior mens Individual Pursuit where he did a PB by 4seconds! He was very happy and also glad to get day one over because he really enjoys the bunch races to come.
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