When you hear a masters sporting event is happening, most people tend to think of people in an older age bracket.
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Seventy, 60, 50, maybe even 40 seems about the right age of a ‘master’.
However, for the Cycling Australia Masters National Road Championships in Griffith this weekend, 30 is the cut-off age – if you’d like to call it that – and Griffith has a large contingent of cyclists competing.
The age of riders go all the way past 75 years of age but at the lower end of the age scale is Mal Blake.
The 31-year-old will compete in his first ever masters national event.
Sickness has hindered Blake’s training in the lead-up.
He’s put in a solid month of training – which isn’t as much as he would like – so Blake isn’t putting too much pressure on himself in the 30-34 years category.
“It will be interesting to see what the competition is like,” Blake said.
“I don’t have much expectation, winter’s been a bit harsh on me with the flu and stuff but I’ll go in to win.”
The quality of the field in this year’s championships is exceptional and medals will be hard to come by with riders travelling from all over the country.
All up there will be three events across the long weekend.
The road race will be held on Saturday using a loop around the airport and finishing on Scenic Hill.
Riders complete multiple laps depending upon their age group – the shortest race is 51 kilometres with the longest being 102.
Roads affected by the Saturday event include, Remembrance Drive, Old Aerodrome Road, Boorga Road, McCarthy Road, Jones Road, and Scenic Drive.
Scenic Drive will be closed to all traffic whilst the other roads will be subject to traffic control.
The criterium event – which is usually a hard and fast race – is on Sunday and will be held around Benerembah Street.
Benerembah Street is closed during this event with side street access also limited.
The individual time trial will be held on Monday where riders set out by themselves and try to complete the 18-kilometre course in the shortest possible time.
Roads affected by the time trial are Scenic Drive (closed) and Jones Road.
The Griffith club has received great support from local businesses and community with both sponsorship and volunteers.
There are 15 local riders – Blake, Craig Tilston, Peter Stockwell, Dick Hore, Albert Ravanello, Kingsley Massey, Bron Jones, Sarah Trotter, Melissa Budd, Ray Gilbert, Leanne Irvine, Tim Ellis, Jenni Massey, Peter Budd and Greg Pattison – contesting the championships which is a club record for this event.
