White led from start to finish to claim the junior elite men and Shelby Green (16 girl’s) won for the second day in a row.
Turner, Australia’s third ranked male competitor in the UCI world rankings is in position to win a spot on Australia’s Olympic team for this year’s Rio Games, and looked all class as he stormed to victory ahead of rising star Kai Sakakibara and veteran Josh Callan.
Turner had finished second behind reigning Australian champion Corey Frieswyk in Saturday’s third round and was determined to lead from start to finish today.
“Yesterday I didn’t get the best of first straights,” Turner said. “I mean, it was still good and I was in the lead, but I didn’t give myself enough lead to get through that first turn where it’s pretty tight.”
“Today my goal was to get a good gate start, to get over the first jump a bit better and it gave me that gap to get through that first turn clear and I knew all I had to do from there was just hold on. It was a pretty good lap.”
In the elite women’s final Curtis broke through for the biggest win of her career, leading from start to finish as the previously unbeaten series leader Melinda McLeod crashed out of contention in the final.
Despite McLeod’s big series lead, Curtis arrived in Cairns believing a win was just around the corner and proved it when it counted, hanging on to win from Sarah Harvey and Ashleigh Gunn.
“I led from the start and pretty much had to push it all the way to the end,” Curtis said. “I was feeling pretty good but my fitness is not that great so I was a little bit worried in the back end of the race that they were going to catch me but I got there.”
Other impressive winners on the day included Molly McGill (15yrs girl’s), Cooper Tye (15yrs boy’s), Beau Pratt (17-29yrs men), Sean Dwight (30+ men), popular local Aislynn Weber (17+ women) and Kai Angel (14yrs boy’s).
Rodway, Turner, Tye, Saya Sakakibara, Angel, Barnes and Green (tied on equal points with Mikayla Rose) now also lead the national series standings in their class after four of seven rounds.
The national series continues with rounds 5 and 6 in Shepparton on February 6 and 7 before the final round in conjunction with the national championships in Bathurst in March.
By BMX Australia. Pic by BdJ