The annual Inter-Club challenge series between Newcastle Track Cycling Association and Manchesters Eastlands Velo proved to be a great success on Saturday when Round One was contested. The venue was St John Fisher High School, Newcastle under Lyme with 40 riders contesting a 39 race programme with the age ranges being from 7 to 16 years of age.
There was a great
atmosphere at the event with a large crowd of parents in attendance. After a
few years where Eastlands dominated the series Newcastle won last years event was a narrow
margin and this year to prove to be a close affair. The lead passed one way
then another over the competition with Newcastle
holding what seemed to be an unassailable 8 point lead going in to the final
four races. However Eastlands put in a great effort to close the gap and
take the lead on the very last event to win the contest scoring 146 points to Newcastle's 141. At the
end of the contest Eastlands team captain Matthew Rotherham was presented with
the trophy and congratulated on their team's performance. All of the Newcastle
team performed superbly on the day and the coaches were proud of them all with
hopes now high of another good performance at Round Two in two weeks which
see's the venue switching to the velodrome at Manchester in the morning and then a road
event on a closed circuit in the afternoon. This second round also see's the
addition of another team in that the Isle of Man are sending over 30 riders to
contest this event. The Newcastle Team for the rollers were as follows;Kieran Morris, Bradley Hill,
Heidi Simpson, Tom Owen, Liam Zwetschnikow, Megan Wynn, Sophie Capewell,
Georgina Clewlow, Jacob Kelly, Joe Evans, Joe Pattison, Ashleigh Williams,
Sallie Birchall, Paige Millward, Louis Prseton, George Edwards, Sassan Emadi,
Sam Birchall, Alex Webb, Sean Mayer, Laura Gray.
