Fry takes solid short track success

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In the short track, Rowena Fry and Daniel McConnell come away with their second wins for the weekend during day two of the opening round of the Australian Mountain Bike Series.

The men's short track was a hard fought race between the experienced McConnell and rising star Paul van der Ploeg, 20, who took the initiative early trying to break the race up. McConnell waited patiently early in the race before closing the gap to the young Victorian and eventually taking the win ahead of van der Ploeg and Ben Henderson but was impressed by his young rival.

"Paul just pushed me and pushed me. I thought he was going to run away with it but I just came good at the right time and managed to sneak away," McConnell said. "Paul's future is just huge. Who knows what he can do? He's so young and his stills are just awesome and he is definitely a name to watch."

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Van der Ploeg was philosophical about his second place finish saying he always learns a lot from McConnell and might not be quite so aggressive at the start of the race next time.

For Tasmania's Fry the women's short track capped off the perfect weekend of racing when she got the better of Heather Logie and Rebecca Henderson. At the end of the first lap, Fry appeared to have the race wrapped up after Logie crashed and found herself in last place.

Showing plenty courage, Logie got back into the race and clawed her way back to second place coming into the closing stages but Fry had enough in reserve to hold on to win by six seconds.

The Tasmanian said she was happy with her early season form but saved much of her praise for Logie. "She's riding awesome," Fry said of the second place finisher. "I don't know where she's come from but it's great to have another girl riding really well on the Australian circuit and a credit to her. She's flying."

By coming back from her first lap crash Logie, who comes from an adventure racing background, showed the sort of character that could make her a factor for the rest of the series.

"In something this short, it's over, it's got to be over," Logie said of the crash. "And then I just thought, 'that's not me'. That's not the way I've approached anything so why would I give up. I thought I'd just keep going and give it a go."

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