Junior Track Cycling

9 March is the date for this yearly TRI Nations Cup. Nations from all over the world travel to Cape Town (South-Africa) to be the best nation. This year teams are from Germany, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, a World Team, and of course South African teams.

Germany sends great riders like Stefan Nimke and Max Levy while South-Africa is competing with their riders like Morne Blignaut. Blignaut, former record holder of the SA Junior 200 metre time trial of 10,84. The World Team have riders like Bruno Risi and Franco Marvulli.

The riders of the SA teams are selected by races in the Bellville Velodrome, host of the TRI Nations Cup. South-Africa will start with 4 teams: Elite, Juniors, Ladies Elite and a Fedaration Team. All the other countries are competing with just one elite team, while Netherlands only sends a Junior Team.

Bellville Velodrome

The event will be held in the Bellville Velodrome, possible the host of the WC Juniors in 2008. The TRI Nations Cup will begin at 18.45 with a team presentation. The evening will have a Sprint, Keirin, Scratch, Elimination, Madison and a 1500metre time trial.

Probably the Juniors and the Elite riders will have their own competition. The Dutch Juniors will have a 3-day trainingsstage comming weekend, to get prepared for this year TRI Nations Cup. They also have a 4-day trainings stage in SA after the TRI Nations Cup. The Dutch Juniors who are going to compete in SA are: Roy Pieters, Michael Vingerling, Yorick Bos, Marijn de Cock, Bouke Kuiper and Christian Kos.

To see the complete start list, go to the link below:
http://www.cyclingsa.com/article_2007-2-12_10.html

In order to encourage more juniors to contribute to this site and to develop writing skills, JuniorVelo.com is going to give away $150 to three young authors.

Q: How much again?
A: $150 (US) per author, for three authors. It’s not going to pay anyone’s way to college, but since you can spend the money any way you like, it could be fun.

Q: Who is eligible?
A: You must be a track racer, and your age must be no more than 18 by the end of 2007. Published results in any junior race or a listing with your national organization that I can see online will be adequate proof.

Q: What do I have to do?
A: Write articles on JuniorVelo.com between now and February 29, 2008.

Q: How do I win?
A: Write things that people want to read on this site. Great writing talent is not required. Just write more often, more interestingly, or about topics others are not covering. I (Steve Ryan) will be the final judge of who wins, though I may bring in other people to break ties, especially if I have a conflict of interest.

Q: How do I get paid?
A: I won’t send cash. The default payment method will be Paypal, since they take care of currency conversion and a minimum of private information needs to pass between us. Since you are under 18 years old, the account should be owned by an adult who will pass the reward on to you. I’ll consider other payment methods if they don’t involve too much extra time and expense for me.

Q: Scholarship?
A: This isn’t really about paying for school, but it is about writing, which is a good skill for any career. The biggest tangible value may be that you can put “Winner of the Junior Velo Cycling Journalism Scholarship” on applications if you think it will help.

Q: Rules?
A: Some guidelines for posting on this site are on this page. Do your own writing, but you can have someone else proofread if you like. It’s fine to include photos taken by someone else if you have their permission and give them credit.

Q: Why are you doing this?
A: 1) Get more riders to write. 2) Improve the content on this site. 3) See if this idea works. 4) Replace the articles I used to write, since I don’t get to as many races now.

In the last year there have been exactly three junior authors, but I didn’t offer any prizes. Perhaps the same three will easily pick up the three scholarships this year. Perhaps there will be real competition, which will make this site a lot more fun.

Results from the Interland race in Ghent and Australian National Championships, both held in February 2007, are now in the database. Thanks to Colleen and Yorick for the links.

Results from the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in January have also been added.

Results

- Day 1
- Day 2

I saw that Australian Nationals took place last week. On the girls side, it looks like Josephine Tomic lead the endurance events, and Philippa Hindmarsh battled with Josephine Butler in all of the women’s sprint events. For the men, Leigh Howard won the new omnium, projecting him as one of the best all around junior riders in the world. Glenn O’Shea, Travis Meyers, Malcolm Rudolph, and Jack Bobridge dominated the junior men’s endurance races while Bryon Davis and Jason Holloway controlled the sprint events.

Full results can be found here.

This is what I was able to gather from afar, sitting in Pennsylvania under a foot of snow and ice. Anybody who participated in the exciting week, have insight??????