Schools on wheels

IT’S NOT often you want to be called into an assembly, but for riders from St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar Schools, there was a big surprise waiting in the auditorium.
Cycling Victoria’s Development Officer Tom Dixon attended St Margaret’s senior school assembly on Tuesday 17 March to recognise the outstanding results achieved by St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar in cycling over the past twelve months.
The schools competed for the three major trophies awarded to schools in road cycling and mountainbiking and were to be congratulated on the remarkable achievement of winning all three.
The state schools mountainbike and cycling champion school titles were won in October last year in a cycling festival held in Bendigo over a weekend. During this event nine of the riders from St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar won individual state titles along with many other minor medals.
A new seven-race series, Victorian Interschool Cycling Championships (VICS), commenced late last year and finished on 15 March. The riders were exposed to a variety of different events including individual time trials, team time trials, criterium events and an exciting but difficult hill climb up Arthur’s Seat. The St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School students performed extremely well throughout the series and with an extremely even team managed to defeat many larger inner-city schools. Their win was even more meritorious given they missed one of the events while competing in the major human powered vehicle event at Maryborough.
The VICS competition was divided into junior and senior, male and female events with individual series champions also recognised.
Olivia Weston from St Margaret’s easily won the senior female category while Sam Clarke from Berwick Grammar had a most exciting victory in the junior male category, only securing the win in the last event of the series.
The captains of the squad were presented with the trophies for all three events and were thrilled to accept the inaugural presentation of the Simon Gerrans Perpetual Trophy for the Victorian Interschool Cycling Series. Despite it being a victory for the whole squad there was a number of outstanding individual performances highlighted by Olivia Weston and Sam Clarke.
Olivia dominated the Senior Female A Grade in virtually all events to win the individual medal. Sam Clarke also won the individual medal in the Junior Male A Grade but in a far closer result – only securing the win by the narrowest of margins in the last event. Both riders, along with several others, have excellent prospects of advancing to the highest levels in the sport.