A great day for PBs

What a way to start the championships! Five bikes on the track, one world championship (so far), one world record and five personal best times.

Brandie and Kerry opened the tandems competition as first bike off in the women's tandem 1km time trial. They rode a personal best time by just over a second and held first place until our other pairing of Flick and Steph took to the track. Another PB saw their names take over top spot. So for a while the scoreboard looked like this

Unfortunately Brandie and Kerry's PB wasn't enough to keep them in that position when the big hitters came out to play, but none of the later riders managed to better Fick and Steph's time so we have our first World Champions for this meet. And just to prove it, here they are with the bling.

Brandie and Kerry ended up 8th, which is significant because the top 10 placings earn UCI points. 

Earlier in the day Michael Gallagher scorched around the track in the qualifying round of the C5 Men's Pursuit and took around half a second off the world record. He is still at the track for the final as I write this post so I'll have to update you on his final result next time. In the meantime, this is how he looked right after his world record ride fresh as a daisy!

And no, he hasn't defected to Argentina, they're just in the pits next to us!

The men's tandems also both produced PBs and finished 9th (Kieran and Scott) and 10th (Bryce and Sean), delivering more UCI points for Australia. The UCI points are significant because they contribute to determining places at next year's Paralympic Games, so every top 10 finish helps.

Early start tomorrow so it's off to bed now, but I'll leave you with a photo of Scott and Kieran just after they finished their time trial, mainly because Scott told me the other day that he's never seen a photo of he and Kieran on the tandem. This one's for you Scott.