Jack Cummings leads the Australian pursuit team around Invercargill Velodrome in the qualifying round of the Men’s Team Pursuit. Picture: MARK GUNTON
By JARROD POTTER
HAVING barely touched down back in Australia, Jack Cummings had only one goal after winning his second World Championship- to dye out the Junior Cyclones’ trademark bleach blonde hair.
Cummings, 18, from Endeavour Hills, claimed his second rainbow jersey by successfully defending the Men’s Team Pursuit at the UCI Junior Track World Championships held in Invercargill, New Zealand last week.
Cummings led the team of Tirian McManus, Alex Morgan and Miles Scotson – with team-mate Evan Hull riding in the qualifying round as well- to the gold with a time of 4:06.277 to knock over the home town favourites, New Zealand.
It was a win that almost didn’t happen for Cummings, almost crashing three times during the race, but he fought back to the front to help guide the team pursuit to victory.
“Relief,” Cummings said about crossing the line in first. “Three times during the race I almost crashed, just from desperation and trying to fight so hard.
“It set me off the back a little bit– at one point with four laps left to go I had to spend a whole lap chasing off the back.
“You have to finish with three guys and there were only three of us left at that stage, so I spent a whole lap trying to chase and make sure I didn’t get dropped and hold up the team.”
The unity of success is the best feeling for Cummings – knowing that he and the other four riders can share that victory after months of hard work on the track.
“I just felt overwhelmed to win it,” Cummings said. “Having that success with four other guys just brings everyone together and it’s just that brotherhood you have with those guys knowing that hard work has paid off. Knowing you’ve put in 100 per cent for them and they’ve done the same for you.”
The Australians had to fight back from a lacklustre performance in the qualifying round, only just qualifying for the gold medal race by half a second.
“Qualifying was disappointing, I really wanted to go out there strongly as we’ve done some really good times in training,” Cummings said.
“I wanted to stamp the authority but I think a couple of people, the nerves took over and a couple of guys relaxed a bit too much.
“We were only half a second above qualifying third – that was pretty tight and that shocked us, and we qualified second to New Zealand.”
From the get go the intent from Cummings and his team-mates was to smash the Kiwis about and set a tempo the opposition couldn’t keep up with from the start.
“Our coach just said to race New Zealand from the gun, which doesn’t happen very often and we regrouped very well and we were up by about two or three seconds for most of the race and I think that gave us that extra bit of encouragement to keep going,” Cummings said.
“We knew when we were up by that margin and when the New Zealanders tried to bring it back, they couldn’t catch it up.
“Times wise it wasn’t as successful as last year when we broke the world record, but we had to fight so much more for the title this year and I think that’s what made it better.”
Cummings races in the Tour of the Murray River this week. He will try to make senior team for the Glasgow World Cup in November and will start to train up for some more Track World Cup events.
