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In the men’s Points Race, the race was taken unawares by first-year elite Tyler Tomkinson and Angus Miller who took a lap on the rest of the field early in relatively easy fashion, with most of the pre-race favourites watching each other back in the bunch.
Josh Duffy was the most prominent in the sprints, consistently picking up points at each sprint to close the gap to the early leaders. After a flurry of attacks that threatened to split the field apart, James Moriarty used the moment to launch his own solo attack, flying around to take a lap and move into the lead.
Tomkinson took his second lap soon after, with Oliver Bleddyn, John Carter and later Zac Marriage all taking a lap on the field, with Tomkinson moving into a sizeable lead.
A power outage at the venue caused the lights to flicker but remain on, however, power to the rest of the venue was cut and meant viewers on SBS On Demand were more in dark than the riders for the next few minutes.
Bleddyn continued his charge up the standings as the race broke apart, taking another lap and moving into the lead, with Tomkinson working his way across in the dying moments of the race to take another lap to move ahead of Bleddyn on points, an advantage that wasn’t challenged in the final sprint, with Carter jumping ahead of Bleddyn into second.
“It was a bit of a mixed plan,” said Tomkinson. “To begin with everyone was riding for themselves. We wanted to establish our roles in the early part of the race.
Tomkinson’s performance was all the more amazing for his age and experience, 18 years old and competing in only his second elite race on the track, but he still took out the gold medal against some experienced and well-credentialled rivals.
“My first elite race was in Melbourne in December, that shocked me, it was ridiculously fast. To win here in my second elite race is amazing.”
In the women’s Points Race it was an open affair early, with a number of riders gaining points over the sprints, with Chloe Moran, Alex Martin-Wallace and Sophie Marr consistently among the points-getters.
A late attack from Isabelle Carnes split the race apart, with Moran and Alli Anderson able to follow. The trio worked well to distance themselves from the bunch, but without the time to finish taking a lap on the field. Moran won the final double point sprint to take the victory, with Carnes collecting enough points in the move to jump up into the silver medal position, with Sophie Marr third.
Matthew Richardson continued his winning ways in the sprint events, taking out the men’s Keirin ahead of Tom Cornish and Daniel Barber to add to his Sprint win earlier this meet.
Richardson drew the front position behind the derny, but opted to swing up and find a new spot on the second lap, which could have seen the Western Australian rider disqualified if the rider behind hadn’t closed the gap.
The reigning UCI Track Champions League champion chose to make his move with about a lap and a half remaining, following Cornish until eventually exploding past the New South Welshman with a formidable turn of speed.
The Women’s Team Sprint gold medal ride was won by Queensland, with Kristina Clonan, Molly McGill and Jacqui Mengler-Mohr triumphing over the New South Wales team of Tomansin Clark, Kalinda Robinson and Eliza Bennett.
South Australia was third, with Chloe Moran flexing her sprint ability as she anchored the squad that included Ella Sibley and Breanna Hargrave.
Watch all the night session action from the 2023 Auscycling Track Cycling National Championships on
