Latrobe Carnival issues about more than just a fence

It advocated for alternate solutions to be found to the requirements set for the Latrobe Carnival to maintain is century-plus long place on the Tasmanian Christmas Carnivals calendar.

But the reality is that it is not just about the fence - or indeed the lack of one.

Free wheel racing in open outdoor tracks is, let's be frank, an art-form of more ancient days. There are no longer journeymen riders plying their trade around the regional tracks of Australia searching for a single career-defining wheel-race victory.

And it is correct to say journeymen because there were no female equivalents in the heyday of carnival racing.

They were mostly tradesmen and rural workers - often from families in which cycling was an embedded culture. They raced the tracks in summer and the roads in winter - mostly separately for amateurs and so-called professionals.

The bigger carnivals attracted the truly professional riders who made their income from six-day racing and special challenge events across the globe. They rode from the back off scratch in pursuit of the glory-seeking part-timers.

Sometimes they succeeded - and created great memories. On other occasions equally wonderful stories became folklore as the precious teenager or the battler at his 20th attempt to win his favoured wheel prevailed.

But those days are gone. There is no longer a division between the amateur and those who ride for money. That's mostly a good thing but it may have contributed to the demise of carnival racing over the long term.

The bicycle now has more popular uses for both recreation and sport - in concrete parks, on mountain trails and on street circuits - as well as on the road which, unlike track cycling, has not only survived but bloomed.

It's understandable that Latrobe does not want to be a running and chopping carnival. After all the organising body is called the Latrobe Bicycle Race Club.

But they are up against it. Tasmania has only a handful of adult registered track cyclists - a sizeable proportion of whom are elite or developing elite for whom there are other considerations in their sport beyond the unquestioned participation of their predecessors in the Christmas Carnivals.

It means that to return to anything like the days of four heats of the major wheel-races, let alone the eight or 10 of the halcyon days, most riders need to be imported from the mainland or overseas.

Putting aside the special challenges of the pandemic, this is a costly exercise. Any rider of any standard who is likely to earn the attention of the media or potential spectators is a part of a state institute squad or racing team and they or their managers want their full expenses covered. There is often also an expectation of a guaranteed earn for the trouble of coming.

Even some riders of the next level down want something in their pocket to attract them away from similar events or criteriums on the mainland.

Only the under-age events have viable fields comprising a majority of local riders.

This is not the same for runners and axemen and women - where the critical mass of participation remains home-grown.

This is not in any way a criticism of the Latrobe organisers or those of other carnivals. Unlike the professional promoters of many other forms of cycling events these days, they are all hard working and committed volunteers who have done an extraordinary job for decades and more.

They and their events are the victims of the way in which cycling has evolved in the 21st century.

The funding and erection of a perimeter fence around the cycling track at the Latrobe Recreation Ground may meet a compliance requirement but won't re-ignite the flame so vividly burning in Kearney's column.

In those grand days there was a swathe of families who religiously spent Boxing Day as Neil's family did. It's doubtful there are many, if any, nowadays - whatever date might be allocated.

If the curtain does fall on the Latrobe Carnival may a solution be found to stage its wheelrace elsewhere - for there is no doubt it is an icon of Australian sport.