Amy Cure’s road to the Gold Coast took a detour via a familiar venue and result.
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Tasmania’s dual Olympian is targeting qualification for her second Commonwealth Games and is doing her chances no harm with a dominant display in her home-state carnival series.
A veteran of the series at just 24, the West Pine world champion had previously won the Launceston Women’s Wheel as a junior and senior with her sister Sarah also among the previous winners.
The only scratch rider in a straight-out final of 20 riders at the Silverdome on Thursday night, Cure and her fellow back-markers had made up the deficit with three laps of the 2000m race to go.
Tasmanian pursuit teammates Lauren Perry, of Launceston (riding off a mark of 60m), and Devonport’s Macey Stewart (30m) made their moves on the penultimate lap.
Cure was sitting fourth with a couple of laps to go and hit the bell on the shoulder of South Australian Maeve Moroney-Plouffe (100m).
A dominant final lap saw Cure add to her win in the Ulverstone Criterium on Boxing Day, crossing the line in 2:17.91 to claim the $1000 winner’s prize.
“It’s awesome to win,” said Cure, who led home Moroney-Plouffe and South Australia’s national time trial champion Bree Hargrave.
“It was tough being from scratch but it’s always nicer to race indoors, it’s a bit more friendly on the scratch riders.
“Lauren was going really strong during the race which set it up for those behind her.
“I was comfortable at the bell but a bit nervous because Maeve caught me but I was able to use that momentum to my advantage and the race just turned out perfectly for me.
“It’s awesome to do it in front of a home crowd in the velodrome because I love racing here.”
Australia has qualified a women’s team pursuit for the Commonwealth Games in April and Cure is seeking to add to the two medals she won on the track in Glasgow.
She won a silver in the scratch race and bronze in the individual pursuit in 2014, has won team pursuit and points race world titles and is the only Australian track cyclist to medal in six different world championship events.
She has a total of 11 medals from four world titles in Minsk, Cali, Yvelines and Hong Kong.
“Everything I’m doing now is with the Gold Coast in mind,” she added.
“I’m using these races to get ready for that because I still need to be selected.”
After the Commonwealth Games, Cure will turn her focus to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo seeking to make amends for disappointing campaigns in London, where she did not get a ride, and Rio de Janeiro, where the Australian team suffered a high-speed crash on the eve of competition.