Academy Southland riders gear up for Oceania Champs

Academy Southland and Cycling Southland athletes Emily Paterson, Conor Shearing, Sophie-Leigh Bloxham and Natalie and Tyla Green will get a rare opportunity to ride against international opposition in front of family and friends at this week’s Oceania Championships at the SIT Zero Fees Velodrome.

We caught up with the quintet to find out how their preparation was going and what their goals for the Oceania Championships were.

Emily Paterson

Oceanias this year hasn’t been my focus so my prep coming off the junior world champs hasn’t been as full on as it normally would., but I’m feeling strong. I’m racing the team sprint with Sophie Bloxham, scratch race, omnium, 500m time trial and madison.

My goals for this Oceanias as a first year elite are to get amongst it with the girls going to the Olympics, and to show that I’m keen to race and learn from the world’s best.

Conor Shearing

My preparation for Oceanias has been good with lots of racing up to the event, including the Yunca Junior Tour of Southland and national schools track champs. The longer racing on the road has been good to build an endurance base for the longer races in the elite grade on the track. I’m riding the team pursuit, scratch race, omnium, 1000m time trial, madison and keirin.

My goals are to be competitive and gain exposure to new racing as I move into the elite ranks.

Sophie-Leigh Bloxham
I’ve been preparing for this since I came back from worlds last year. I’ll be riding the team sprint, sprints, keirin and 500m time trial.

My goals are to perform to the best of my ability and to see how well I can perform against the elites and to trust in my process.

Natalie Green

My preparation for Oceanias is going good. I’m feeling on track but it’s been really hard and super busy. I am riding all of the endurance events.

My goal for Oceanias is to perform to the best of my ability and hopefully get top five in each event, as well as some personal bests.

Tyla Green

It’s been pretty full on with lots of training. I have been focusing on the little technical things for each training session, but overall it’s been really good. I am riding the team sprint, 500m time trial, scratch race, keirin and match sprints.

My goals are to get some new personal bests in each event and just have lots of fun racing with heaps of learnig and developing as a rider.