Beijing, Melbourne, Copenhagen and home!

Following Christmas I was again a busy boy... Early January I went into a training camp in Invercargill for the build up to the UCI Beijing World Cup which was my first international experience in the Elite NZ track squad. Build up went well and I was riding the best I ever had. My form lead me to be the "anchor-man" of the team as coach Tim Carswell would put it, in the team pursuit. Qualifying in the Team Pursuit didn't go to plan and we qualified 4.10 for 4km Team Pursuit, which meant we were riding for Bronze.

Me on the front of the Team Pursuit in the final for Bronze

For the final we rode a bigger gear (which meant we would pedal slower, but go faster if we could have the same cadence as on a smaller gear) and the ride felt 10x smoother! We nearly caught Ukraine in the ride off and rode 5seconds faster in the final! We rode 4.05 which was a personal best for all of us (Shane Archbold, Tom Scully, Aaron Gate and myself, we are the U23 Development squad.

Team Pursuit Beijing WC - Bronze

Team Pursuit with Jason Rico on left (Mechanic) and Tim Carswell on right (Head Coach)

The Madison was on Sunday and I rode with Tom Scully. In the morning session we had qualifying, two heats of 10 riders, and one team from each heat would miss out on the final. Early on I was coming around a Russian rider in the corner, 2 laps before the sprint, just about to throw Tom in the next lap and he swung up and took me down! I hit the ground hard and collected a lot of splinters. Carsy (Tim Carswell) picked me up and put me back on my bike. We won the next sprint and qualified first in our heat.

I landed on my left hip and knee, hurt a lot!!

I had about 4hours till the final and Nikki our sougnier (physio, massage lady, and everything else) cleaned me up. I had splinters galore! Even had a 5cm splinter in my leg, f**k it hurt to get out!!!! I stayed at the track, had a nap on the massage table, ate some chinese noodles for pre-race-meal ha and was ready to race again. I was in a lot of pain but managed to race, and Tom and I ended up with bronze, I was stoaked! I was also stoaked to have Tom as a partner, he has had a awesome season with two World Cup Golds and 3 Bronzes in Beijing. Luckily he was riding strong, as my crash knocked me around a bit!

My first World Cup and two medals.... Not a bad start.

Tom and I during a change in our Bronze medal winning race

After Beijing I got sick ( could have been due to the crap food we were eating and picked something up, or could have been due to antibiotics I was on from the crash) and was on the toilet for 2 days! Training stood still for about a week and I turned up to nationals in Invercargill a bit underdone... Less than 2 week after Beijing.

Nationals went reasonably well considering. I started of well in the Kilo, I rode a personal best in 1.03.6 (1minute, 3.6seconds) which got me 2nd behind Eddie Dawkins who rode a NZ Record. I didn't get the Silver medal because I was entered in the Omnium which was 5 events over the 3 days, and not entered in the Kilo individually! Was a bit fuss kicked up about it, but I was just happy with the time I wrote. I ended up 4th in the Omnium over the 3 days of racing! And also won a Gold in the Team Sprint for Auckland.... Not too bad.

Next post will be about what happened after Nationals! Was quite exciting...