Ginn rows away with Oceania title

By published

Rhodes rides into women’s crown

Two high profile Australians with different motivations dominated the time trials on the third day of the Oceania Cycling Championships. Small fields braved bitterly callous winds for the road time trials at Winton, near Invercargill this morning.

They were dominated by Australians who took out the honours for men’s elite and under-23 as well as elite women.

The men’s winner was Drew Ginn, who was competing in his first major cycling event after finishing a stellar career in rowing highlighted by three Olympic gold medals and five world championships. Ginn took out the elite men’s honours clocking 51:08 minutes for the challenging 40 kilometre course, finishing 1:35 minutes ahead of Bay of Plenty’s Logan Hutchings, the 2008 New Zealand champion.

The Victorian is part of a company that owns and operates two bike shops in Melbourne as well as his own consultancy, and has turned his attentions to cycling. He was not the fastest rider over the challenging course today with Michael Matthew (Australian Institute of Sport) winning the under-23 honours in a superb 48:21 minutes ahead of Alexandra’s Alex McGregor who clocked 50:31 minutes, the second fastest rider overall.

The other Australian of note was the elite women’s winner Alexis Rhodes who took out the exciting contest by just four seconds from New Zealand champion Melissa Holt (Cambridge) with Victorian Bridie O’Donnell a further 12 seconds back in third.

In other results Andrew van der Heyden (Waimate) won the under-19 title over 25km, clocking 35:20 minutes ahead of Patrick Jones (Otago) while 16-year-old Georgia Williams (Auckland) recorded an impressive 41:53 minutes to take out the under-19 girls’ honours.

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Elite men
#Rider Name (Country) TeamResult
1Drew Ginn (Australia)51:08:00
2Logan Dennis Hutchings (New Zealand)0:01:35
3Simon Croom (New Zealand)0:02:46
4Sam Witmitz (Australia)0:08:32
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Elite women
#Rider Name (Country) TeamResult
1Alexis Rhodes (Australia)33:39:00
2Melissa Holt (New Zealand)0:00:04
3Bridie O'Donnell (Australia)0:00:16
4Vicki Whitelaw (Australia)0:01:06
5Gabrielle Vermunt (New Zealand)0:02:19
6Kathryn Watt (Australia)0:02:47
7Nicola Bowden (New Zealand)0:02:48
8Karen Fulton (New Zealand)0:03:15
9Melanie Burke (New Zealand)0:04:06
10Marina Duvnjak (New Zealand)0:04:29
11Courteney Lowe (New Zealand)0:06:00
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Under 23 men
#Rider Name (Country) TeamResult
1Michael Matthews (Australia)48:21:00
2Alex Mcgregor (New Zealand)0:02:10
3Mat Marshall (New Zealand)0:03:18
4James Ibrahim (Australia)0:11:09
DNSRuaraidh Mcleod (New Zealand)Row 4 - Cell 2
DNSMichael Vink (New Zealand)Row 5 - Cell 2
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Junior men
#Rider Name (Country) TeamResult
1Andrew Van Der Hayden (New Zealand)35:20:00
2Patrick Jones (New Zealand)0:02:05
3Kirk Hamilton (New Zealand)0:02:31
DNSAlex Frame (New Zealand)Row 3 - Cell 2
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Junior women
#Rider Name (Country) TeamResult
1Georgia Williams (New Zealand)41:53:00

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