Lithgow’s Emily Watts has come away with a haul of medals from the 2018 NSW Elite and Under 19s Track Championships at Dunc Gray Velodrome.
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Watts, riding for the Sydney Uni Velo Club, claimed gold in her pursuit and points races.
She was a dominant winner in Saturday’s points race before scoring victory in an exciting pursuit duel on Sunday, getting home by 2.6 seconds over the ACT’s Lauren Thomas.
“I didn’t get off to the greatest of starts in the pursuit. The plan was to be conservative for the first kilometre but then she got in front of me so I had to pick up the pace,” Watts said.
“I took three laps off the field during the points race, so that was 60 points right there. The reason I kept trying to take points was that there was another girl trying to take laps along with me, so I just had to monitor what she was doing.”
Watts finished with 103 points in the race to beat Thomas (60) and Angela Smith (55) convincingly.
In her preliminary pursuit race Watts produced a time of 2:35.189, eight tenths of a second quicker than her gold medal ride.
Bathurst’s Harry Carter may have missed out on the gold he earned in the time trial last year but this time around he still scored three silver medals.
He started his campaign on Friday in the one kilometre time trial. His time of one minute and 5.980 seconds wasn’t enough to catch Kai Chapman (1:04.411).
Chapman had Carter’s measure again later in the day during the scratch race.
The Bathurst rider qualified fastest for the individual pursuit final on Sunday but had the tables turned on him during the gold medal race against Jordan Louis.
Carter finished with a time of 4:45.748 while Louis produced a 4:41.768.
“Kai was really strong in the kilo and I was happy to come second to him. I’d done a 1:04.6 at New Zealand in the Oceania Championships and the Dunc Gray track was a lot slower,” Carter said.
“No-one was able to beat their times from New Zealand and Kai was the only one who managed to do a similar time. I won the state kilo last year but for Kai this race is certainly his speciality.
“The scratch race was good. Me and Kai are probably on the faster end of the endurance riders so we had good sprint potential. He just held on and I finished up right next to him.
“The pursuit was tough. It’s always disappointing when you qualify fastest but lose the final. Jordan’s a strong pursuit rider. My personal best is a [four minute] 39 and he didn’t end up riding faster than that.”
Orange local and Bathurst club rider Harry Bryant also had a busy state campaign riding in the men’s under 19s events.
Bryant’s best result was a sixth place in Friday’s scratch race against a red hot field.
He finished ninth in both his time trial and individual pursuit races.
The NSW teams for next month’s Track Nationals are expected to be named this week.