The event began in 2011 and is held each year on the Great Ocean Rd, beginning at Lorne. This year’s event was an age group world championship attracting 4000 athletes from around the world. This was run in conjunction with a recreational ride of 121km over the same course. Cobram Barooga Cycling Club members who attended were club president Raymond Jarratt, Wayde Foster, Craig Sloper, Dermot Nichols and Myles Higgins.
Thursday October 16 saw the first event take place, a time trial conducted on an undulating 22.7km course. Shepparton-based Myles Higgins competing in the 80/84 age group, has a great background in time trialling, being one of the favourites.
His ambition to win a world title was realised when he took first place, beating a highly credentialled competitor in Robert Braszell, who had beaten him by four and a half seconds at Wagga in an Australian championship event a few weeks ago. His time of 43 minutes and five seconds was quite slow, as it was a very difficult course not conducive to fast times.
Sunday, October 19 saw Myles again in action, this time over a gruelling course of 131km with 1800 metres of climbing. Even though the super veteran is superbly fit he found it quite exhausting, and did well to finish third. Braszell turned the tables on him this time, recording a superb victory. All in all a very satisfactory result for the near 80-year-old champion.
World championships were also conducted at Wollongong during the week with former Australian Duathlon champion Gary Smith representing the Cobram Barooga Cycling Club at the World Aquabike Championships. Now retired and making a comeback after a long hiatus, the 61-year-old was hoping for a positive result. An incident where he was hit by a motor vehicle on his bicycle postponed his training by about four weeks. Not deterred, he did an intensive training program over a period of about four months. He was concerned that the incident may mar his performance. This discipline included a 1500m ocean swim and a 40km bike leg. Gary set an excellent swim time of 23.02 minutes, and led into the bike leg by a few seconds, but at the 19km mark he was eventually overtaken by an American athlete, and set a time of 1 hour 4 minutes. He was overjoyed with the result, as a silver medal at that level is particularly gratifying.
Other results at Lorne included Craig Sloper, who in the 50/54 age group road race finished 116th of 203 starters, averaging a respectable speed of 35.56 km/h. Dermot Nichols contested the 19/34 age group and finished 95th in a field of 181, posting an average of 38.81km/h. Raymond Jarratt and Wayde Foster completed the same course as a training exercise.
