Inter Regional Track Championships 2010 Day 2 Morning

The third session of the competition saw the third team at the top of the leaderboard with the continuing North West domination of the sprint competitions powering them ahead of yesterday’s leaders Wales. Jess Crampton and Matt Rotherham won the Girls and Boys Keirins, but the team in yellow didn’t have it all their own way…

Full Results Picture gallery

The second day of competition at the Inter Regional Track began with the Girls’ Keirin with yesterday’s Sprint competition winner Jessica Crampton of the North West Region lined up in the first heat. With three through to the Semi-Finals, Crampton cruised to victor, followed by Emily Nelson of West Midlands and Ellie Gilham of South.

In the second heat – after the roar of the relacitrant Derny had been replaced by Newport’s near silent motor bike – it was home favourite and Sprint runner-up Sarah Crowley who booked a Semi-Final place for Wales, followed home by Jessica O’Brien of Yorkshire and Laura Clode of South West. Imogen Farlie of South East – third in yesterday’s Sprint competition – who took the third heat from Natalie Hill of Central and Points escapee Beth Hayward of Eastern.

The final three places went to Kate McCullough-Young of Scotland, Paige Millward of the West Midlands and Jess Anderson of the North West – who left such a big gap to rush in first place behind the Derny that she was the Derny for a lap and a half.

In the semi-finals, Crampton won again, but Hill was hot on her heels with Anderson taking the third berth. Crowley cruised through in the second Semi with Millward and Farlie also going through.

Emily Barnes won the C Final, with Emily Nelson taking the B win. The A Final was a North West tour de force with Jess Crampton leading home team mate Jess Anderson and Paige Millward of the West Midlands.

In the first of the Boys’ Keirin heats, yesterday’s Sprint champion Matt Rotherham of North West came from a long way back to lead out at the bell and looked to be cruising to the victory until a cheeky push from Zak May of Wales put him into second. Both riders qualified for the Semi Finals – along with George Pym of South West.

Sprint runner-up Sassan Emadi of West Midlands came back at Chris Lawless of the North West who’d taken the race on when the Derny pulled off. Daniel Dickenson of Yorkshire was the third rider to qualify.

The third Sprint podium rider from yesterday –
Dan Maslin of Central – booked his place in the Semis with a good win over Alex Minting of East Midlands and Angus Gillies of Scotland.

The last heat saw Robbie Westwood of Wales, Stuart McCluskey of Scotland and Ben Green of the East Midlands.

A crash in the first of the first of the Semis saw Daniel Stewart of Ulster – who’d ridden a good tactical race and positioned himself well for the sprint, Oliver Plumley of Eastern and Keiran Laurie of South East crash out while riding three abreast round the banking. Charlie Tanfield of the North East and his team mate Taylor Cardus managed to avoid the carnage, along with Will Stephenson of South.

They were joined in the C-D Final by Jacob Scott of Yorkshire, Tao Geoghegan-Hart of Eastern and current Under 14 Track Omnium National Champoin Jack Hoyle of South East.

Zachery May of Wales continued to look good, leading home what had looked like being a red 1-2 with team mate Robbie Westwood until Alex Minting of East Midlands gate crashed the party on the line. The battle of the sprint titans in the second A-B Semi saw Rotherham, Emadi and Maslin take the other three places.

Jack Cracknell of the West Midlands won the D Final, Tao Geoghegan-Hart of Eastern the C and Chris Lawless of the North West took a tight B win from Angus Gillies of Scotland.

The final was a barnstormer with May looking to continue his winning streak by attaching himself to Rotherham’s back wheel, at the back of the Derny line. It was a good plan, but unfortunately when Rotherham took off, May couldn’t hold him. Rotherham took the win by a mile from Minting who just edged out Westwood.

The next event was the Girls 2km pursuit qualifiers – with the top 4 riders going through to this afternoon’s finals. The 3^rd-4^th ride-off will be between Abby Mae Parkinson of Yorkshire who clocked 2:40.676 and Alice Barnes of Central – 2:42.781.

Both the finalists dipped under 2:40 – only just in the case of East Midlands rider – and Scratch race champion – Lucy Garner who set a time of 2:39.584 – and comfortably in the case of Amy Roberts of Wales – the most consistent points scorer of the competition so far – who set a blistering 2:35.241.

Parkinson and Barnes were neck and neck for most of the 3^rd-4^th ride and both improved slightly on their times from the morning session, with Barnes squeezing out just a little more time to take 3^rd for Central with a time of 2:41.440, 1.3 seconds faster than her Yorkshire rival.

In the final, Roberts pulled out a 1.5 second lead, but Garner pulled it back to two tenths with two laps to go and edged into a narrow lead at the bell. By the gun she’d pulled out a two tenths advantage, to take the win with a 2:38.226 – Roberts clocking 2:38.517.

With National Record holder Jon Dibben in the last heat, we knew we were in for a special time and we weren’t disappointed – although he didn’t get anywhere . The top four in the Boys competition were Dibben at 2:19.188 – four seconds off his best, but just a second shy of Rob Lampton’s Championship Record , Jacob Ragan of North West at at 2:21.104, Sam Lowe of East Midlands just six tenths back at 2:21.777 and Ragan’s team mate Chris Latham on 2:22.571.

In the 3^rd-4^th final, Lowe took a second a lap out of Lathan and caught him on the bell lap, but carried on to set a time of 2:22.742.

In the final, Ragan went out like a rocket, building up a two second lead by the half way point, but as Ragan started to fade, Dibben stuck to his schedule and clocked a time just two tenths off his qualifier – 2:19.357 – while Ragan faded to 2:23.053.