CYCLING
By MARK RAYNER
Eight medals from eight events was the reward for the hard work of Bathurst cyclists Rosemary Hastings and Marian Renshaw at the UCI Track Cycling Masters World Championships at the Dunc Gray Velodrome in Sydney between October 14-19.
Hastings (61) won two gold medals and a silver while Renshaw (50) finished with three silver and two bronze medals from her five events. Both women said they were delighted with their results.
"We both fought pretty hard for them, particularly Marian with her training," Hastings said.
Renshaw's silver medals came from the 500 metre Time Trial, Scratch and the Sprint race, while her bronze medals came in the Individual Pursuit and Points race.
Meanwhile, Hastings took gold in the Individual Pursuit and Sprint competition and a silver in the Scratch event.
Both women had been training hard in the lead up to the event, with Renshaw concentrating on power as a sprinter and Hastings focusing on endurance work.
"Basically because I am in the sprint side of things it consists of doing efforts mainly. I do at least 10 starts every second day down at the track and efforts up Mount Panorama, quite a few of those, but it's not a lot of kilometres but it is very intense," Renshaw said.
"Rosemary is in endurance which involves long mileages."
"It gets to the point where you have to change from the base stuff into strength and power so you have to work it up in the lead up to the event," Hastings added.
Three hundred-and-thirty riders took part in the track championships, including 110 competitors from overseas, but the numbers weren't as high as recent years. Still, Renshaw said that didn't affect the quality of the competition.
"This was a worldwide effort and even though we didn't have quite as many countries as we should have, due to the collapse of the market, we still had plenty of countries represented," Renshaw said.
"Great Britain and South Africa were heavily represented, especially in the women's [events], and Australia had quite a good contingent which was good to see.
"There was a lot of enthusiasm on the Australian front because next year we've got the Australian Masters Games so there will be quite a lot of people coming over for that as well as the Track UCI Masters again so that will be a big three weeks and that will be our next goal."
Renshaw got a pleasant surprise when her son, Tour de France cyclist Mark Renshaw, arrived back from Europe early to watch her compete.
"It was excellent, I am going for gold in my pet event, the 500 metre Time Trial because he is a world champion in his discipline, so if I can match it we will be the first mother and son team to do it. I will have to train very hard this year," Renshaw said.
The UCI Track Cycling Masters World Championships were held in Manchester, England for 12 years before being staged in Sydney for the first time in 2007. They will be held in Sydney again next year and the Dunc Grey Velodrome has put in a bid to extend their hosting role.
"I heard they put in for it and they have got quite a good reputation now for holding it, so it mightn't be too hard for them to secure it actually," Renshaw said.
"We would really like to try an encourage more women to join, it's certainly male dominated, which is understandable, but it's such a great thing to do. It's so exhilarating and exciting and it keeps you fit, so it would be great if we could get a lot more women interested and involved," Hastings added.
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