October 12/09 15:58 pm - Ontario Omnium Championship - Forest City Velodrome, London

Posted by Editor on 10/12/09
 

Report courtesy Rob Good

The racers in Ontario put on another great night of racing at the Forest City Velodrome on Saturday night (October 10th). There were two competitions going on at the same time, with the racers on the rivet during all of the evening's events.

The sprint tournament was split into "A" & "B" divisions, with the individual lap times in qualifying determining the division for each group. The racers were also racing on 86" gears to level the competition and make the racing much more competitive.

The "A" sprint competition had the biggest upset of the year, as 15 year old Kristofer Ovsenek (Invita Sport-FCV) outsprinted the 2009 Canadian Junior Sprint Champion Allan Leparskas (coachchris.ca) for the "A" sprint tournament. Ovsenek is spending the fall playing Volleyball in an effort to build strength for the winter season of track racing at the Forest City Velodrome. Kristofer's win was the first for the new junior team of Invita Sport-FCV.

During the competition in the early rounds the favourites moved on with many of the Cadets and Juniors making their way into the finals. In the end, in a very close sprint, Tomas Hums came over the top of Jason King on the home straight to win the Bronze medal.

The "B" tournament was just as competitive as the "A" group with the fastest qualifiers moving on to the finals. Taking his first victory of 2009 was Mike Renneboog (D'Ornellas) just nipping Vince DeJong (coachchris.ca) at the line to take the first place prize. The battle for Bronze came down to a very short sprint as tactics played a roll in the finish. Cadet racer Alex Cataford (Ottawa Bicycle Club) attacked local London racer Doug Devine with just over one lap to go to win by a bike length.

In addition to the sprints, many of the racers were competing in a five event Omnium. The women had a some solid competition and put on a great show. Some personal best times were achieved in the timed events in the afternoon with the mass start races spot lighted the evening's program. Krista Ruby (La Bicicletta/J. Linberg) dominated the competition, scoring a win in the three kilometre TT and finishing second in all the other events to take first prize. Florence Laplante- Lamarche (Saputo) and Emily Mackenzie-Picot had solid finishes to complete the Omnium in second and third places respectively.

On the men's side of the Omnium, the competition came down to three riders throwing bombs at one another in the points and scratch races during the evening session. Just one point separated Cadet Alex Cataford, Junior Ryan Aitcheson (Jet Fuel Coffee) and Senior Adam Thuss (Red Truck – Trek). During the points race all three riders attacked each other in an effort to score the most points and put the others in a world of hurt. Thuss came out on top scoring 28 points in the 80 lap feature. With 17 points Cataford was right on Thuss's back wheel during the entire event. Aitcheson who tried to lap the field at the half distance mark came up a little short and paid the price by blowing up and missing the crucial split and dropping to third.

The last event of the night, the men's scratch race, saw many of the sprinters wanting to get some extra racing in and filling out the field to a track busting 18 riders. The three favourites had to defend many attacks from the fresher riders who added a wild card to the event. Cataford had to beat Thuss by three spots to win the overall. The average speed of the race was 43.527 kph and with most of the riders dropping out from the constamt attacks the field was down to six riders in the end. With nine laps to go Aitcheson attacked over the top and immediately gained 1/2 a lap as Cataford and Thuss watched one another. It wasn't until the riders were within four laps of the finish that the field started to chase, a little too late as Jason King came along side of Aitcheson, however could not get around him, margin of victory for Aitcheson in the scratch race was .082 seconds (it's great to have electronic scoring). Thuss hung on for third, just edging out Cataford for the overall Omnium victory.

Gold – Adam Thuss
Silver – Alex Cataford
Bronze – Ryan Aitcheson

The next race at the Forest City Velodrome is Saturday, October 24th, with racing starting at 7:00 pm. All of the winter programs have started at the FCV. For updated Recreational and Racing information please go to the website: www.ForestCityVelodrome.ca.