A SILVER medal at the national track cycling championships continued Georgia Baker’s push for Olympic selection.
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The Perth 21-year-old, who won a succession of stage and tour victories on the road last year before focusing on track endurance, finished behind world champion Annette Edmondson who won the women’s points race for the fourth time in five years.
The 24-year-old lapped the field as she cruised to victory with her South Australian teammates Alex Manly and Danielle McKinnirey setting up the opportunity by pushing the pace from the start.
Edmondson mounted a number of attacks and once she had broken away there was no catching the Adelaide local in front of her home crowd.
Baker won the sprint to take silver ahead of Ashlee Ankudinoff, of NSW, who had earlier denied West Pine’s Amy Cure gold in the individual pursuit.
Other Tasmanian results at the track nationals saw Hayden DiCoco-Grant miss bronze by just a point as he finished fourth in the under-19 points race, while fellow Launceston rider James Robinson put in a dominant performance in the open scratch race.
In the under-19 women’s points race, North-West Coasters Morgan Gillon and Renee Dykstra were 11th and 14th respectively, while Launceston pair DiCoco-Grant and Harry Baker were seventh in the under-19 men’s madison.
Hobart’s Nathan Earle continued his great early season form to finish 13th outright, as two-time Tour de France-winning Brit Chris Froome claimed the Herald-Sun Tour.
Earle’s Drapac teammate Will Clarke, of Campbell Town, finished 49th having claimed the yellow jersey after winning the prologue. Their efforts helped Drapac finish fourth out of 16 teams.
On the final stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in Spain, Kinan teammates Jai Crawford, of Hobart, and Wes Sulzberger, of Legana, were 117th and 128th to finish 53rd and 118th respectively.
In the Dubai Tour, Launceston’s Matt Goss (ONE Pro Cycling) was 116th in the fourth and final stage to finish the race 103rd.
And as most Tasmanian mountainbikers were tackling the Blue Dragon, Hobart Olympic hopeful Scott Bowden was finishing second in round five of the national MTB series in Thredbo, NSW.
