Preview of Preston Park Sprint Championships

on 17 June 2009

by Gavin Smith

The sprint championships evening will soon be with us. It is one of the highlights – if not the highlight - of the Preston Park calendar. This season, reigning PP sprint champ and Euro Masters sprint champ Lee Povey will have his work cut out to retain his PP title. Last year, he saw off the strong challenge from his clubmate Mark Burgess in the final, while Felix English was third and Adam Gent came fourth. This year, those four will also have to contend with a certain Jean Spies, the South African keirin and Olympic champ! Forget national championships and the Olympic Games, there will be a mammoth amount at stake at Preston Park on 17 June, and sparks are certain to fly in that final.

The event will follow the format introduced last year, with a qualifying round of 200-metre TTs to kick off senior proceedings. The riders with the 8 fastest TT times will continue in the competition. As a guideline, Lee was fastest qualifier last year with a super-fast time of 11.92sec (a tad short of 38mph), and the last qualifier in eighth place posted a time of 13.42sec. There will then be four heats involving those 8 riders, then semis, then the scintillating final!

For the youths races, U16, U14 and U12 are likely to require heats, though this will depend on numbers competing on the evening itself. The usual suspects for the titles will be the hot favourites, namely U16 Elliot Tabraham-Dowers, U14 Ashley Dennis, U12 Amy Barnes, U10 Joe Hill or Douglas McCauley and U8 Evelyn Parle.

As always for a championship evening, the podium will be out and there will be presentations, though of course the real awards will be given after the end of the season. Also, double points are up for grabs for all championship events.

And for those who don’t excel in sprints, there is the supporting programme of non-championship events after the title-races.

NB: WE DO ASK THAT YOU:

Try to get to PP earlier than usual on 17 June.

Sign on by 6.45pm.

Make sure you don’t block the time-keepers’ view between the finish and the 200-metre mark.

Follow events closely, so we can get through the programme smoothly.

MANY THANKS, AND SEE YOU ON 17 JUNE FOR THE SPRINT CHAMPIONSHIPS MEET