Inter-Regional Track Championship
- Josh Pricew
- Sep 26, 2016
- 4 min read
For my last race as an U16 ever, I was selected by Wales to race for them in the Inter-Regional Track Champs. The team of boys was Matt Burke, Oscar Mingay and Zach Bridges, and the girls were Elynor Backstedt, Ella Barnwell, Emma Finucane and Amy Cole. We met on Friday 23rd September at Newport Velodrome by 4.30pm and put our bikes in the Welsh Cycling cage ready for the racing on the Saturday and Sunday. We then all got in the van and drove to the Holiday Inn in Cardiff where we would be staying. After unpacking the van and putting everything in our rooms, we went down for dinner with the other regions staying in the same hotel; Eastern, Yorkshire, East Midlands and West Midlands, and then after having pasta and chicken, we all went to bed for an early night.On the Saturday after breakfast we went to the Velodrome by 8am ready for the day’s events which were either a flying 200m and match sprints, or a points race and a madison race, depending on whether you were a sprinter or endurance rider for your region. I’d been picked to be a sprinter, along with Zach, so we warmed up for our flying 200’s. Having only done a few flying 200’s in my life, I knew I wasn’t going to be the best at them, but I still went as fast as I could and got a time of 12.22 which was good enough for 14th place out of the 24 who also did them. We then had to do 3 match sprints throughout the day, and having only done two before, I didn’t have much experience with them, so went into the first trying to do as well as I could. I unfortunately lost the first sprint which was disappointing; I then tried a different tactic for the second sprint which worked as I managed to win it. For the final one, I had managed to leave too big a bag to the other rider to rush, and he beat me by about a wheel which was very disappointing, but I still got 14th out of the whole day which wasn’t bad for me with such little experience. Zach managed to get 8th which was amazing for him and helped us with the team competition majorly. During the same day Oscar and Zach had their points and madison race, Oscar had a great race in the points, attacking early on, getting lots of points in the sprint laps and managing to lap the field, and got the most points overall, so got the win which was amazing. Oscar and Matt then did very well in the madison, getting a third place together. Ella and Elynor got the win in their madison race, again helping to boost the teams overall position, and Ella also got a second place in the points which was great.On the Sunday, it was more of a team focused day with a Team Sprint, Team Pursuit and an elimination race. For the Team Sprint, it was me, Zach and Matt completing the three laps in that order, we managed a fifth place which was really good for a team with not much sprinting experience. We then focused on the Team Pursuit which was out main aim for the day, so after a thorough warm-up, we went last out of the teams, and started our 3km Team Pursuit, all the changes were very smooth but we were all struggling after the hard weekend we’d already had, and so what we could manage was a second place in a 3.24 time, 3 seconds off the time Yorkshire had set which was a bit gutting for all of us, so we re-assessed our plan and changed timings slightly for the final ride-off. Soon after our first ride, we were in the gold medal ride-off with Yorkshire. All of us were struggling and so straight from the gun, Yorkshire was up on us and unfortunately that’s the way it stayed throughout the race. Yorkshire managed to set a new national record in the process, so for us to beat them was a big ask. We still worked together well, getting a 3.23 in the final, so improving on our first time. The Welsh girls had an amazing Team Pursuit, setting a new national record in their first ride, and then smashing it again the second time. The final races of the day would then be the elimination race, with a qualifier where the top 12 people would qualify for the final race. The pace was high to begin with, and I tried to stay as close to the front as possible to avoid elimination, this worked and I managed to qualify for the final, along with Matt and Oscar. In the final race, the pace started off very high and stayed it throughout the race. It has to be one of the choppiest races I’ve ever ridden, with everyone riding into each other constantly as everyone wanted to be at the head of the race. I stayed at the front at the bottom of the track as much as possible, having people riding down onto me constantly and having to use my elbows lots to stay upright. Even with elimination usually being my weakest race, and it being one of the most dangerous races I’ve been in, I managed a 12th place, and Oscar managed an amazing 2nd place. With us all having been quite high up, we managed to finish off the weekend by winning the overall team competition, with second being Yorkshire, and third being North West.Overall the weekend was an amazing experience, I felt honoured to be riding in Welsh colours and was amazing to get the overall team competition by everyone riding well constantly and well together. Thank you Welsh Cycling for the incredible opportunity to represent Wales.
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