From the pall emerged the joy.
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When Scone-raised Sam Hill, 22, beat Sydney riders Tom Bolton and Angus Calder by 10 seconds to claim his second Gunnedah to Tamworth road race on a bitterly cold and windy Sunday, he did so having survived a major incident early in the race.
About two kilometres into the 105km annual state-open event, comprising graded scratch races, six division-one riders crashed. Four of them, including 17-year-old former Gunnedah local Kurt Eather, were treated at the scene by paramedics. It is understood three of them were then sent to hospital, but were later released.
On Saturday, Dubbo-based Eather, one of Australia’s most talented young cyclists, won the Keegan Downes Memorial Sundowner Handicap, a 100km state-open race from Coonabarabran to Gunnedah.
The two other unnamed cyclists involved in the crash withdrew from the race.
The crash resulted in the race being halted for a short period, and the starts of the other five divisions were delayed.
McDonald said: “We’ve been very fortunate that nobody’s been too seriously injured. It’s always a tragedy when something like this happens in a race. But of course, that does come with the territory in a dangerous sport like cycling.”
The contrast between the misery of that moment and Hill’s finish-line elation could not have been more pronounced. Now based in Newcastle and riding for Canberra-based National Road Series team Phoenix Cycling Collective, Hill pumped the air ahead of the Burgmanns Lane finish line. Post-race, the huge smile on his face said it all.
He also won the race in 2016 and placed third last year. He recorded the fastest time in the 2016 Sundowner, but “got spat out the back in the cross winds” during Saturday’s race.
Lesson learned.
“I wasn’t used to the cross winds,” he said, “and I wasn’t expecting them [to be] quite as much as what they were. “So today I was ready, because I knew there were going to be cross winds.
“So I was towards the front [of the race], made the initial split and then I just went from there.”
No Tamworth rider finished in the top three. Steven Roberts came 23rd in division one; Ben Clark finished eighth in division two; Mark Stewart finished 11th in division three; Andrew Noakes came 10th in division four; Malcolm Nash came seventh in division five; and Pip Ash was 10th in division six.