Stuart Morgan leads the breakaway. 76647 Picture: KRISTIAN SCOTT
STUART Morgan triumphed in a remarkable A Grade race to take out Footscray Cycling Club’s Eric Turner Memorial Club Criterium Championships on Saturday.
In a race that did not go to script, several fancied riders, including defending champion Steve Pilson, gun sprinter Dom Dudkiewicz, and previous champion Graham Carlson, frustratingly missed the winning break.
Danny Bellis, Ben O’Leary, Darren Henneken, Miles DaCosta and Josh Zammit formed this break immediately, and in the following 10 minutes Steve Antonello, Chris Zucchet and Morgan bridged the gap.
By the middle of the race, O’Leary was the only original member of the break to survive, and was joined by Antonello, Zucchet and 41-year-old Rosanna resident Morgan.
“The bunch were having trouble pulling the break back so when the opportunity presented itself to bridge across I took a chance,” Morgan said.
Once the foursome had established a half-lap lead, the dispirited bunch containing the pre-race favourites lost momentum and it was clear one of the breakaway four would be the next club champion.
Going into the last corner, Zucchet lost control of his bike and crashed, with Antonello taking evasive action through the trees, leaving Morgan in the box seat.
“Chris washed himself off and took another guy off as well so it was just Ben and I knew I had to go with the tailwind and come into the straight first wheel.” Morgan, a sports scientist, crossed just clear of O’Leary, with Antonello managing to get back on the track and keep third.
“I haven’t had a win for over a year; I’ve had some patchy form over the last six months and I had put that down to being 41 and started to resign myself to not winning too many races in the future,” he said.
In his acceptance speech, Morgan paid tribute to the club volunteers. “I wanted to acknowledge the great work that happens behind the scenes at Footscray, guys who put in so much time,” he said.
In B Grade, 47-year-old teacher and perennial bridesmaid Mark Micallef managed to hold off gun sprinters Colin Morris and Delphine Astier to take home the medallion.
Ryan Kenny got everyone’s attention by launching several attacks and attempted to pummel the bunch into submission.
While he landed quite a few blows he couldn’t deliver the knockout punch, as there were many riders willing to chase down any aggressors.
With the bunch weathering all attacks and remaining intact towards the end, it would come down to a bunch sprint, and Micallef knew the wheel to be on.
“I moved forward with about 10 minutes to go and sat on Ryan’s wheel as he looked so strong. I figured he would break away with three laps to go and I could follow,” Micallef said.
