The Amy's Gran Fondo is named in honour of Amy Gillett, an Australian Olympic cyclist who was killed in 2005 when on a training ride in Germany. She was training with a group and was hit by a car and suffered fatal injuries.
The event began in 2011 and is held each year on the Great Ocean Road, and this year’s event coincided with the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships, attracting 4,000 age-group athletes from around the world. This was run in conjunction with a recreational ride of 121 kilometres over the same course.
Cobram Barooga Cycling Club president Raymond Jarratt, as well as members Wayde Foster, Craig Sloper, Dermot Nichols and Myles Higgins all attended the event, which began on Thursday, October 16, with a 22.7 kilometre time trial on an undulating course.
Shepparton based Higgins lined up as one of the favourites in the 80-84 age group, due to his great background in time trialling, and his ambition to win a world title was realised when he took first place, beating a highly credentialed competitor in Robert Braszell who had beaten him by four and a half seconds at the Australian Championships in Wagga a few weeks ago.
His time of 43:05 minutes was quite slow, as it was a very difficult course not conducive to fast times.
Myles was again in action on Sunday, October 19, this time over a gruelling course of 131 kilometres with 1800 metres of climbing. Even though the super veteran is superbly fit he found it to be quite exhausting, but he still did well to finish third, which all in all is a very satisfactory result for the near 80-year-old champion.
The World Triathlon Championships were also conducted at Wollongong last week, with former Australian duathlon champion Gary Smith representing the Cobram Barooga Cycling Club in the World Aquabike Championship event.
Now retired and making a comeback after a long hiatus, the 61-year-old was hoping for a positive result, however four and a half months of intensive training was interrupted when he was hit by a car, leaving concerns that the incident may mar his performance.
This World Aquabike Championship saw competitors tackle a 1,500 metre ocean swim and a 40 kilometre bike leg, with Smith setting an excellent swim time of 23:02 minutes to emerge from the water in the lead, holding a few seconds advantage into the bike leg.
At the 19 kilometre mark he was eventually overtaken by an American athlete, however, but held on to second place to set a time of one hour and four minutes. He was overjoyed with the result, as a silver medal at that level is particularly gratifying.
Other results at Lorne included Craig Sloper, who in the 50-54 year age group road race saw finished 116th of 203 starters, averaging a respectable speed of 35.56 kilometres per hour, while Dermot Nichols contested the 19-34 age group and finished 95th in the 181-strong field, posting an average of 38.81 kilometres per hour. Raymond Jarratt and Wayde Foster completed the same course as a training exercise.
