TrackNats24: South Australia, New South Wales, Kurt Eather and Claudia Marcks win elite national titles on Day 5

South Australia wins third straight men’s team sprint national crown

South Australia has continued their dominance of the elite men’s team sprint national championship on the final day of the 2024 AusCycling Track National Championships, producing a Championship Record time of 42.965 seconds in the gold-medal final.

The South Australian trio of Maxwell Liebeknecht, Leigh Hoffman and Matthew Glaetzer led from the gate versus New South Wales trio John Trovas, Danny Barber and Thomas Cornish, with last man Glaetzer crossing the finish line 0.794 seconds ahead of the silver medallists.

Their Championship Record time refreshes their own winning time from 2023 of 43.525 seconds, set by Liebeknecht, Hoffman and James Brister.

New South Wales also eclipsed the 2023 winning time to win silver, highlighting the current world-class depth of Australian men’s sprinting.

Queensland’s Brycen Fletcher, Ryan Elliott and Byron Davies finished with the bronze medal in 44.047 seconds versus Victoria.

Western Australia’s squad had a day to forget at Anna Meares Velodrome, which started with a warm-up crash involving Finn Carpenter.

It got even worse for the men from the west when Matthew Richardson, Shane Perkins and Blake Long were relegated in qualifying and denied a shot at a medal due to Richardson crossing the line before Perkins on the last lap change.

What they said:

Matthew Glaetzer: “I actually don’t know (how many national championships I have). I stopped counting a few years ago! Look, you're always on to bigger and better things. Nationals are always a stepping stone for me. It’s a good little test for us. But yeah, we were all about trying to win world champs and the Olympics now.

“It's always good to get racing in, and as a men's sprint squad across Australia, we're actually quite deep at the moment. So, it's actually a really strong competition. So, going through that process is really valuable in the lead-up to a Track Nations Cup, which is our final race before Paris. So, it's just honing a bit of race craft, selecting a bit of gear choice in the build-up for Paris.

“It means a lot representing South Australia. We love it, us SA boys. It's always fun splitting up the national squad into states, and then we go head-to-head, who's got the stronger team.

“SA has always been pretty good, so we've got two out of the four national team sprint boys in our team at the moment, so we’ve got maybe a little bit of an unfair advantage, but we love it. It's good fun, and it also gives some young lads an opportunity to come into the team with us, feel a bit of pressure, and they perform.

“Max (Liebeknecht) did great today. He really improved in that second ride. Didn't need to improve by much, but he did. So, it's really great in that sense to really get around some younger guys who step up and line up against us. It can be a bit daunting, but it's exciting. So, that's what I love.

“I've always tried to give guidance to the younger guys. It's a great platform to do that when you're in amongst the state group. Always sense the younger guys are looking to you for a bit of advice. They might say a question here or there, and they’re chomping at the bit to learn and soak it all up. So yeah, it's great. If we can impart a little bit of knowledge into them, a bit of strategy, a bit of life advice, it goes a long way because I know I appreciated that when I was young from the older guys.”

Maxwell Liebeknecht: “Got it done, it was just nice to see Leigh hit the celebration griddy there at the end right after.

“It was good, cracked the sub-18 second start lap, delivered the boys, went nearly a whole second faster than what we did in qualification so that was real nice, and of course the championship record.

“It’s pretty hard having two of the fastest in the world practically on your wheels, so, I was a bit nervous, but it was good.

“I tried to give Leigh a little bit of a run, back off the pedals, make it a bit easier for him (laughing), but the highlight was definitely the griddy.

“I ducked under the 10-second marker in the flying 200m over in New Zealand. It was a bit hard to try and hold form in between that and TrackNats and having a week off makes it difficult, but I feel like I’m slowly progressing.

“I’ve still got a little bit of work to do to catch up with the other boys around my age, Ryan (Elliott) is a bit ahead, so is Danny (Barber) but I feel like we’re heading in the right direction now, which is nice. It’s a good way to end the week.

“The keirins were bloody brutal though, like bloody Richo – the speeds those boys were doing! I’ve only got one good acceleration. So, I’d get on the first attack and then after that I’m just cooked, I’m literally just battling uphill, but it was nice to make the 7-12 final because I didn’t manage to do that last year – I was happy with that.

“I nearly hit the deck again this year (in the keirin), threw a whip mid-race and got some airtime but managed to keep it on two wheels so that was alright.”

New South Wales breaks five-year drought to win women’s team sprint national title

Selina Ho, Tomasin Clark and Kalinda Robinson have reclaimed the elite women’s team sprint national championship for New South Wales for the first time since 2019.

New South Wales denied Queensland a third consecutive title, defeating the home team trio of Emma Stevens, Sophie Watts and Jacqui Mengler-Mohr by 0.434 seconds in the gold-medal final after stopping the clock at 49.461 seconds.

Ho was the only remaining member of the 2019 winning team which contained Kaarle McCulloch and Sophie Knox, with McCulloch now on the maroon side of the pits as Queensland sprint coach.

For Robinson and Clark, the victory is their maiden elite national title.

What they said:

Tomasin Clark: “It’s a really good team and I think we work really well together and even though this is probably the second time we’ve ridden together as a full team so really proud of the girls and we executed what we went out to do.

“This is my first national jersey and my second-ever Track Nationals, so pretty cool.”

Kalinda Robinson: “I’m going well at third wheel at the moment, which is good. Had Selina and Tomasin put together a good ride in front of me so it was easy to follow and then just finish it off.

“She (Selina) is pretty rapid out of the gate.”

Selina Ho: “There’s been a couple years where we’ve come second and I’m really glad that this year we could pull it together. Like Tomasin said, it’s our second ride ever as a team, the first one was qualifying this morning, so I’m really glad that we stitched it together so well.”

Tomasin Clark: “There’s definitely room to improve but I think we’ve put something good together over this week.”

‘To finally get one feels pretty good’: Kurt Eather wins first individual national title in elimination race

New South Welshman Kurt Eather has continued the theme of first-time individual winners at the 2024 TrackNats after sprinting to the win to be the last man standing in the elite men’s elimination race.

The 22-year-old, who won his maiden elite national title back in 2020 in the team pursuit, rose to the occasion in the final endurance event of the week, diving under two-time defending champion Graeme Frislie in an all-out attack on the final lap.

The Victorian was unable to latch onto the wheel of Eather, delivering a very popular win to the Dubbo product.

Czechia’s Jan Voneš won the bronze medal.

2024 is the first time the elimination race national title has been raced in the main program in Brisbane, with it previously being held in Launceston as part of the TasCarnivals, which are held annually in late December.

What he said:

“It’s pretty special to get that one. I’ve been close to it a few times but to finally get one feels pretty good.

“I knew getting down to the end that if it was Fris left with me that I’d want to be in front of him because he’s pretty quick and it’d be hard to come around him. When he got in front of me at the top there I thought, alright I’m diving underneath, and did that and just put my head down and went full gas.

“I usually go pretty good in elims, I don’t think I’ve ever won one before today, but I’ve got second a few times in the omniums.

“After the scratch race the other night I was pretty determined to get a win and I knew if I was going to get it that it would be in this event.

“(On CCACHE x Par Küp’s track ambitions) It’s a great opportunity Sam (Layzell) has given a few of us to be able to hopefully get to Track Nations Cups. We’ve just got to try and get a few points over the next few months, and getting the win here today definitely helps because the more points the better. If we can get into the top-five trade teams in the world we’ll be able to race a few Track Nations Cup events which will be good.”

Claudia Marcks wins breakthrough national championship in women’s elimination race

Canberran Claudia Marcks had big goals to ride away from the 2024 TrackNats with her first green and gold national champion jersey, however, not even she expected that to come in the elimination race.

The 20-year-old played her tactics well at the front of a taxing elimination race tussle to be the last Australian standing and win the bronze medal.

Marcks was elated when she looked to see only Ireland’s Lara Gillespie and Czechia’s Petra Ševčíková with her as the last three riders and celebrated with a beaming smile after being eliminated to finish third.

Gillespie ends her wildcard week at TrackNats with a third gold medal to add to her scratch race and team pursuit wins.

For Ševčíková, who couldn’t hold the wheel of a rapid winning surge from Gillespie, it was her third silver medal of the week.

What she said:

“I’m really happy. I just went into the race just seeing how I’d go and follow wheels, fill in the gaps, and really happy that I turned around and there were only three riders left, and I thought, alright – cool, I’m national champ.

“I was just kind of making sure that I could see at least the last person behind me or that I knew that there was someone’s wheel that was going to be after mine and then just tried to keep up the front, push up when people push up and it seemed to work in my favour.

“Coming from Canberra where we don’t have much; we don’t have an indoor track, we don’t have many riders, so it’s been really great to have the opportunities with the Aus team to do some more TP stuff and really leverage that to hopefully contest and ride in the world championships at the end of the year.

“I guess my last 12 months have really shown just how track time has really helped me develop.

“I really wanted that national championship in the IP. I was pretty gutted not to have that but I think that really kind of left me a bit hungry for the bunch races. I did alright in the points race as well, which I was happy with considering I’m not really a points race rider.

“And today, I really knew who the girls were to look out for and once they were out the bum I was like, alright – sick.

“I’m super happy to take home a national champion jersey whether it was in the IP or not.”

Luke Richert and Alex Hewes – Junior Men’s Madison National Champions

What they said:

Alex Hewes: “I think we started the race really well. We had a good lead until that crash, which kind of set us back because we were half a lap up. So, that was a bit disappointing, and we had to do a full restart. But yeah, we got back up. We had a bit of a fallback mid-race where we fell into second place, but we came home strong and yeah, it was so good to get another national title with someone I’ve done the mado a lot with in the past.”

Luke Richert: “Yeah, absolutely we communicated. So, we have our plan from the start, which was try to settle in and grab some points early, and try and hit them at the back end of the race and play to our consistency as teammates. I think we were the strongest team in terms of how close we were in ability. But yeah, once there was the crash, I went over to Alex and I said, ‘look, we've got plenty of racing left, just keep ticking away,’ and then execute the plan just as we hoped.

“So, it was a setback, because we were on for a potential lap gain there, so it was a bit disappointing to be brought back into the group and have the restart, but I think we stuck to our plan and it worked pretty well. We hit them hard at the end of the race and managed to just bring the gap back in those last couple of sprints, so it worked really well.”

Alex Hewes: “This medal is all thanks to Jordan though and his coaching. Jordan Kerby has been incredible. So, it’s good to get another gold for him, especially after the setback in the TP yesterday. We just missed out on the gold final. Qualified third, and then we broke the all-comers record in the final, so we could have won that one if we didn’t ride so conservatively through a couple of mistakes, but yeah, it's awesome to get the gold for him.”

Liliya Tatarinoff – Junior Women’s Keirin National Champion

What she said:

“I mean four medals, that's got to prove that I'm doing alright. So, yeah, I was just so stoked to get all four. It was definitely a goal of mine.

“Last year, I didn’t do too well in the keirin, I didn't medal, so I'm really happy to get the gold this year. And I'm happy with how I raced.

“Well, I have to thank my coach, Sean Eadie, and my teammates, Maya (Dillon) and Phoenix (Julian) and all the NSWIS people. It’s great to have good teammates to push me along and keep me having fun because that's always important. Then my dad, my parents, my mum.

“I just like going fast. It's just there's a thrill to going so fast that it's just exciting and fun.”

Lauren Bates – Junior Women’s Elimination Race National Champion and Lauren Bates and Lilyth Jones – Junior Women’s Madison National Champions

What she said:

“I’m so stoked. That was so much fun. I had the time of my life doing that. Coming back to track really like makes me remember how much fun I had. I had a pretty big stack at junior worlds and I wasn't very confident on the bike, and I was settling in at the start, and I'm just so happy to be back on the boards having so much fun.

“It’s a bit hard because in the ACT because we don't actually have an indoor velodrome. So, I would have to go somewhere else if I wanted to really pursue track, but I think the focus is road worlds, and then maybe afterwards when I get hopefully into a team or something, I will come back. But yeah, this year is solely focused on road worlds.

“I was feeling a lot better this morning (from cramping last night). I had a pretty late night last night but did all the recovery things. Had the reco boots on, rolling, stretching, all that kind of stuff. So, I think that stuff is really important for me. But yeah, definitely felt a lot better this morning. A bit of an early start, I would say. But yeah, it was good fun.

“Look, there's too many people to list to thank. My coach (Glenn Doney). The whole ACT Academy of Sport. I went through so many injuries last year and I'm so grateful for all the staff there. Physios, dieticians, everything. Like, I could not have gotten to junior track worlds last year without them, and I could not be here without them. My parents (Kerri and Rod Bates) – amazing. I actually have no words because they're just incredible, so supportive.”

Oscar Gallagher – Junior Men’s Elimination Race National Champion

What he said:

“Today’s win is good. Unfortunately, I had a crash at Oceanias on good form and that takes the energy out of you but I think I’ve just been like trying to get in the right mindset to try and get a win before I leave.

“It was a hard race, I just thought about what I was going to do and it all came together and won.

“I was a bit worried then but just waited and waited and then launched. Got around him and got the win.

“It’s pretty useful that I have the sprint genetics.”

The 2024 AusCycling Track National Championships are part of the 2024 Brisbane Cycling Festival, held from March 1 to April 14. Visit brisbanecyclingfestival.com for more info.

Pictures: Mackenzie Sweetnam