Santos Festival of Cycling - Recap

Images courtesy of Santos Festival of Cycling

It had it all the Santos Festival of Cycling, from a thrilling opening round of the National Road Series to a wonderful Summer Showdown at the Cove BMX club. Below we recap all the events across the six-day celebration of cycling.

National Road Series

Luke Durbridge and Sarah Gigante claimed the Santos Festival of Cycling Tour's overall honours, the opening event on the 2021 National Road Series.

Gigante, riding for Garmin Team Australia, claimed an incredible and fully deserved overall Tour victory. The 20-year-old's GC lead was never in any doubt during the criterium raced in 41-degree temperatures won by teammate Georgia Baker.

Durbridge's UCI World Tour team BikeExchange worked tirelessly to protect the West Australian during a frantic hour of criterium racing in sweltering conditions won by reigning Australian criterium champion Sam Welsford.

Durbridge claimed overall Tour honours, while Stage 2 winner Luke Plapp finished second and took the Tour's Young Rider's classification.

Santos Para-cycling Wheel Race

The Australian Cycling Team para-cyclists took centre stage at the Santos Festival of Cycling held in scorching 41-degree temperatures at Victoria Park.

One of the feature races of the final day of the Festival, Australia's Tokyo Paralympic Games hopefuls in action included Darren Hicks, Carol Cooke, Meg Lemon and more.

Hometown hero Hicks praised all the riders for keeping it together in the heat, something which the Tokyo Paralympic Games hopeful knows all too well.

"We've been doing quite a bit of work in the heat chamber just to get ready for what Tokyo would be like and it's a bit of practice that's for sure," Hick said. "The whole plan of doing races in the heat is to make us as acclimated as possible for Tokyo.

"It's warm but it's something we've got used to and what we really ask for is to have a go in front of the crowd and show them what we're all about."

Adelaide Track League

In front of about 1300 fans - 50 per cent capacity because of the COVID restrictions - the Australian Cycling Team was back on track at the Adelaide Track League.

The sprint and endurance racing included Australia’s Olympic team and rising Academy stars, with Matthew Glaetzer making his return to racing since undergoing treatment for cancer.

Full report at https://tourdownunder.com.au/blog-articles/matthew-glaetzer-on-overcoming-cancer-to-compete-in-the-olympics

The Cove BMX Summer Showdown

The Summer Showdown certainly lived up to its name, delivering some fantastic racing on a scorching day at the Cove. Close to 150 entries across a range of age groups including 30 sprockets and 12 mini wheelers hit the track for one of the last events of the Santos Festival of Cycling.

Across the day there was an abundance of quality racing with a few cracking finals, all building up to the Superclass events. In the women's event, Mickayla Perkins of Jingili BMX just edged out the number one plate of South Australia, Georgia Potter, over four motos. In the men's event, Olympian Anthony Dean was too good on the day, clean sweeping the men's ledger. Local favourite and national junior elite men's champion, Matty Tidswell put in a fantastic performance, narrowly beat by Dean in the final.

It was a considerable effort from the whole team at The Cove BMX club and their entire team of volunteers!

Click HERE for all the results

Summer' Cross P/B' Port Adelaide Cycling Club

It was a blistering hot day out at Mary Lee Park as 75 riders hit the course for a fantastic day of racing.

While the heat kept the fields small, there was some fantastic racing across all grades with the Junior 17's setting the tone in the first race.

As the heat of the day passed, the heckling got louder, hand-ups were made (some more successfully than others), and despite the dust and heat, a nice night at a new venue.

The event wouldn't have been such a success without the volunteers and staff who set up the course early on Saturday morning and packed up the course.

Results have been uploaded now at: http://results.pacc.org.au/2021/SummerCross/

AMBC XCC Short Track

Adelaide mountain bike riders spent a golden Friday evening clipped in racing for the first short track cross-country race of the year for the Adelaide Mountain Bike Club.

Over 80 riders across 15 categories from Under 13 to the A Grade lined up for the four hours of timed fury on two wheels, as part of the Santos Tour Down Under Festival of Cycling.

The event, which was a first for AMBCC working with the AusCycling events team attracted quality rider and those from other discliplines including World Cup downhiller Connor Fearon.

The heat wasn’t the only thing riders had to overccome but the fast loose track which featured plenty of technical features.

Race of the day was in the A grade me with Griff Knight and Sam Walsh battling wheel to wheel, with Knight taking the top step.

Full results from the evenings racing can be found HERE