Cycling _____________________________________Page

It’s been another action packed year for our SJC cyclists as they’ve competed in various road and mountain bike events around the state. The Victorian schools cycling championships road event took place on 12 August, using the same circuit as last year, racing around closed roads in Victoria Park in Ballarat. The team faced typical ‘Ballarat weather’, with a top of 9 degrees and drizzling rain all day – which made racing difficult. 22 boys made the trip to race across all age levels, with St Joseph’s easily having the highest numbers of any of the competing schools.

The first race of the day was the U/15 event, with 15 SJC boys lining up at the start line. We took the first 12 positions over the finish line before a rider from another school crossed! Congratulations to all boys on the way they rode, particularly to Oliver Poole, Clay

Page and Cooper Jessen who crossed in first, second and third respectively – qualifying for the state final in the process.

In the U/17 novice category, Jai Sebastiani rode very well to take 4th position and Jack Benstead took out 6th. Dominic Van Slageran and Zac Rushbrook both rode very strongly to cross the line in 4th and 8th respectively in the hotly contested U/17 racing category.

In the last race of the day, the U/19 racing event, Joseph McMahon went out well and had all but sewn the race up near the finish with a large lead when he unluckily suffered a flat tyre that put him out of the race. This turned out to be a positive for Evan Splojaric who was able to capitalise with some impressive riding to take the win and qualify for the state final. On 16 August, 15 SJC boys joined 250 other students from all over Victoria at the You Yangs for the mountain bike western zone final. All boys rode the challenging course very well, demonstrating skill and determination as they fought for position. There was a huge field for the U/15 event, with SJC having 7 representatives amongst the 45 riders. Oliver Poole backed up his impressive ride in the road event to take out 3rd and qualify for the state round in mountain biking as well! Will Arblaster (7th), Dougal Barrett (15th), Thomas DeGrandi (17th), Tom Hardiman (20th), Ollie Giles (22nd) and Riley Beste (29th) all rode very well. Jake McCorkell (7th), Mitchell Grima (8th) and Jai Sebastiani (12th) rode strongly in the U/17 event and Lachlan Sharp (4th), Matt Bolger (6th) and Michael McAuliffe (7th) were also impressive in the U/19 race. Dominic Van Slageran and Joseph McMahon both made the trip to Bendigo in October to compete in the road state final in their respective age categories. While neither boy finished in the placings, they both rode hard in very competitive fields to represent the school extremely well – good work boys! The final event on the cycling calendar for 2015 was the Around the Bay in a Day Schools Challenge, a 100km ride from Melbourne to Frankston and back on 18 October. All boys rode very well to comfortably cover the distance in glorious sunshine. We look forward to an even bigger and more successful year in cycling in 2016!

Mark Rayson