Moruya turned on its autumn best to welcome over three hundred cyclists to the New South Wales Masters Road and Criterium Championships last weekend.
On Saturday, Yarragee Road and Araluen Road won the visitors with its rural idyll and a tough course fit to decide State champions. Gundary playing fields looked a picture as colourful riders assembled to start their respective events. Men and women in five year age groupings from 30 to 35, and up to 70 years and over, did battle with each other to win the coveted champions’ jerseys.
Moruya proved to be the winner in what officials described as the best championships in years. Some 1200 visitors brought over $300,000 into the local economy, with motels booked out, cafes busy from dawn to dusk, and the usually quiet afternoon streets filled with cyclists. In the process, the district gained invaluable exposure to a new tourism market, with all visitors enthusing about the region’s offerings, and vowing to return.
Colourful lycra cavalcades of riders did battle in a total of 16 road races. On Sunday, the venue shifted to the North Moruya industrial estate, for the 16 criterium (short circuit) championships. This course was praised as the best the riders had ever raced on.
Neil Skipper (Tuggeranong Vikings) in Masters 3, Graeme Allbon (Goulburn) in Masters 4 and Colin McIver (Armidale) were the standout performers in the men. Each pulled off the double – displaying the stamina and hill climbing of road champions, and the speed and cornering skill of criterium masters.
Women to achieve the difficult double were Felicity Williamson of Sutherland and Terry Moore of Tuggeranong Vikings in W3 and W4. Even so, Janine Ridsdale was the standout woman, winning the W2 road race by five minutes at a speed that many men would envy. Her young baby prevented her racing the criterium.
Eurobodalla women cyclists were the local stars. Gail Johnston won the only home gold medal in the W2 criterium. She clung to the bunch in spite of a limited preparation and ground out a dogged sprint win over Susan Henry of Randwick Botany.
In the W5 road race Gail McCann finished two seconds behind Nowra’s Ingrid Holland, lack only Ingrid’s power in the sprint.
Kirsti McVay was delighted with her bronze in the W4 road race, losing by eight seconds to winner Terry Moore of Canberra and runner up Sue Navakas of Tuggeranong Vikings. The five hundred metre uphill finish demands a power sprint which proved Kirsti’s undoing.
Pre-race favourite in M9 - Graeme Meek - was disappointed in his form in the road race, and was beaten into third place in the criterium.
The Eurobodalla Cyclists Club has won the right to host the titles again next year. Planning has already begun to make a great promotion even better and seal the Eurobodalla as a cyclists’ mecca.
